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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap; Copyright No, 

Shell„_iE.-l. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE STORY OF THE NATIONS 



I2MO, ILLUSTRATED, PER VOL., $1.50 \ Yz LEATHER, GILT TOP, $1.75 
THE EARLIER VOLUMES ARE 

THE STORY OF GREECE. By Prof. Jas. A. Harrison 

THE STORY OF ROME. By Arthur Gilman 

THE STORY OF THE JEWS. By Prof. Jas. K. Hosmer 

THE STORY OF CHALDEA. By Z. A. Ragozin 

THE STORY OF GERMANY. By S. Baring-Gould 

THE STORY OF NORWAY. By Prof. H. H. Boyesen 

THE STORY OF SPAIN. By E. E. and Susan Hale 

THE STORY OF HUNGARY. By Prof. A. Vambery 

THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. By Prof. Alfred J. Church 

THE STORY OF THE SARACENS. By Arthur Gilman 

THE STORY OF THE MOORS IN SPAIN. By Stanley Lane-PoolB 

THE STORY OF THE NORMANS. By Sarah O. Jevvett 

THE STORY OF PERSIA. By S. G. W. Benjamin 

THE STORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT. By Geo. Rawlinson 

THE STORY OF ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. By Prof. J. P. Mahaffy 

THE STORY OF ASSYRIA. By Z. A. Ragozin 

THE STORY OF IRELAND. By Hon. Emily Lawless 

THE STORY OF THE GOTHS. By Henry Bradley 

THE STORY OF TURKEY. By Stanley Lane-Poole 

THE STORY OF MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA. By Z. A. Ragozin 

THE STORY OF MEDIAEVAL FRANCE. By Gustave Masson 

THE STORY OF MEXICO. By Susan Hale 

THE STORY OF HOLLAND. By James E. Thorold Rogers. 

THE STORY OF PHCENICIA. By George Rawlinson 

THE STORY OF THE HANSA TOWNS. By Helen Zimmern 

THE STORY OF EARLY BRITAIN. By Prof. Alfred J. Church 

THE STORY OF THE BARBARY CORSAIRS. By Stanley Lane-Poole 

THE STORY OF RUSSIA. By W. R. Morfill 

THE STORY OF THE JEWS UNDER ROME. By W. D. Morrison 

THE STORY OF SCOTLAND. By John Mackintosh 

THE STORY OF SWITZERLAND. By R. Stead and Mrs. A. Hug 

THE STORY OF PORTUGAL. By H. Morse Stephens 

THE STORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. By C. W. C. Oman 

THE STORY OF SICILY. By E. A. Freeman 

THE STORY OF THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. By Bella Duffy 

THE STORY OF POLAND. By W. R. Morfill 

THE STORY OF PARTHIA. By George Rawlinson 

THE STORY OF JAPAN. By David Murray 

THE STORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RECOVERY OF SPAIN. By H. E. Watt; 

THE STORY OF AUSTRALASIA. By Greville Tregarthen 

THE STORY OF SOUTHERN AFRICA. By Geo. M. Theal 

THE STORY OF VENICE. By Alethea Wiel 

THE STORY OF THE CRUSADES. By T. S. Archer and C. L. Kingsford 

THE STORY OF VEDIC INDIA. By Z. A. Ragozin 

THE STORY OF BOHEMIA. By C. E. Maurice 

THE STORY OF CANADA. By J. G. Bourinot 

THE STORY OF BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. By R. W. Frazer 

THE STORY OF THE BALKANS. By William Miller 

For prospectus of the series see end of this volume 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON 




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BRITISH INDIA 



BY 



R. W. FRAZER, LL.B., I.C.S. (retired) 

LECTURER IN TELUGU AND TAMIL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE AND IMPERIAL 
INSTITUTE, ETC. 



<LW> 






NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

LONDON : T. FISHER UNWTN 

1897 



Copyright, 1897, by 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London 

By T. FISHER UNWIN 






£be Iftnicfeerbocfeer (press, 1Rew Jgorfe 




PREFACE. 



I HAVE considered it best not to include in foot-notes 

or in the body of this short Story of Indian History 

references to the many authorities I have consulted. 

To have done so would have broken the narrative 

and been of no service to the reader for whom the 

Story is intended. As far as possible original sources 

of information have been relied on, while all recent 

works of any importance on Indian History have 

been read or consulted. To the numerous works 

of Sir W. Wilson Hunter — including the " Rulers 

of India" Series he has. edited — I would especially 

acknowledge indebtedness, and this with particular 

gratitude as it was his writings which first, over 

twenty-five years ago, inspired me with a love for 

India and its people. 

Sir George Birdwood's exhaustive and learned 

" Report on the Old Records of the India Office," 

Captain Mahan's " Influence of Sea-Power upon 

History," Professor G. W. Forrest's " Selections 

from the State Papers of the Foreign Department 

of India," and " The History of the Portuguese in 

vii 



VI 11 PREFACE. 

India," by Mr. F. C. Danvers, have all been most 
valuable and suggestive. 

Throughout the Story attention has been centred 
more on the main factors which led to the foundation 
and expansion of British Empire in India than to mere 
details of military operations or of administration. 

The early history of commerce between the East 
and the West, the gradual passing of the course 
of that commerce from the Mediterranean to the 
route round the Cape of Good Hope, the long 
struggle between the Dutch, French, and English 
for predominance which ultimately left England 
at the close of the seventeenth century in com- 
plete possession of the seas and absolute command 
over the Eastern trade, are traced for the purpose 
of enabling the reader to gain a clear insight into 
the primary factors underlying British Dominion in 
India. The gradual decay of the Mughal Empire 
and loosening of all controlling authority over 
outlying principalities are shown to have been the 
secondary elements which left India as a field for 
the statesmancraft of Hastings, who extended the 
British influence from its secure basis in the delta 
of the Ganges — where it had been established by 
Give — across India to Bombay in the west and down 
to Madras in the south. 

After a careful consideration of the State Papers, 
edited by Professor Forrest, Sir John Strachey's 
" Hastings and the Rohilla War," Sir James Stephen's 
" Nuncomar and Impey," Sir Alfred Lyall's " Warren 
Hastings," Mr. Beveridge's " The Trial of Maharaja 
Nanda Kumar," and contemporary papers, I have 



PREFACE. IX 

endeavoured to give an unbiassed account of the 
career and policy of Warren Hastings. 

The further conquests and acquisitions by a long 
series of Governors-General, from those of the Mar- 
quess Wellesley down to the annexation of Upper 
Burma, in the present day, by Lord Dufferin, have 
been but the inevitable results of the policy inaugu- 
rated by Clive and Hastings. 

The important article, by Sir W. Wilson Hunter 
in the May number of the Fortnightly Review for 
1896, detailing the discovery by him of evidence that 
as early as 1681 a movement was started by Fell, 
Bishop of Oxford, for the purpose of the "Conversion 
of the Natives" to Christianity, was unfortunately 
received too late for reference in the account of 
Education and early efforts made for the spread of 
Christianity in India. 

Miss E. J. Beck has kindly placed at my disposal 
two photographs taken by her, and reproduced on 
pages 55 and 338 ; while to the kindness of the 
publishers of Mr. James Samuelson's "India Past 
and Present," I am indebted for permission to re- 
produce the photograph on page 293. 

The spelling of Indian words is that adopted by 

the Government of India in Sir W. Wilson Hunter's 

Gazetteer of India : — a as in women ; a as in father ; 

i as in polzce ; i as in intngue ; as in c<?ld ; u as in 

b«ll ; it as in s&re ; e as in grey. The popular mode 

of spelling is used in the case of well-known places, 

and in extracts the mode of spelling used therein 

is retained. 

R. W. FRAZER. 

London Institution. 



CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. 



I. 



Early History of Indian Commerce 



PAGE 
1-26 



Ancient Trade, 1-4— Invasions of Alexander the Great, 4-6 
—Intercourse between East and West, 6-8— Muhammad, 
8-10— Cities of the Mediterranean, 11-12— Portuguese Dis- 
coveries and Trade, 12-20— Dutch and English, 21-22— 
Early Travellers, 22-24— Early Voyages, 24-26. 



II. 

Rise of the Honourable East India Company 27-47 

The First Voyage, 27-30— Subsequent Voyages and Hostility 
of Portuguese and Dutch, 31-36— Profits of Eastern Trade, 
36-38— Early Settlements, 39-40 — Wars with Holland and 
France, 41-45 — England remains supreme maritime power, 
4^-46 — The United Company or Honourable East India 
Company, 46-47. 



III. 



India on the Eve of Conquest 



48-67 



Early Invasions of India, 48-56— The Aryans, 51-55— Mu- 
hammadan Invasions, 55-57— The Mughal Emperors, 57-67 
—The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe, 59-62— Break-up of 
the Empire, 62-66 — Anarchy and Weakness of Oriental 
Troops, 65-67. 



xii CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. 



IV. 

PAGE 

French Efforts to Establish an Empire 

in India 68-77 

French in South India, 68-69 — The Marat has and Native 
Princes of South India, 69-70 — Dupleix and French Suc- 
cesses, 70-75 — Capture of Madras and Siege of Trichino- 
poli, 71-75 — Clive to the rescue, 77. 

V. 

Robert Clive 78-118 

Early Life, 78-80 — Defence of Arcot, 83-84 — At Kaveripak, 
85-86— At Trichinopoli, 86-88— Returns to England, 89— 
Arrival at Madras, 90 — Black Hole of Calcutta. 91-93 — 
Defeat of Siraj-ud-Daula, 95-96 — French surrender Chan- 
dranagar, 97 — Aminchand deceived, 97-98 — Plassey, 99-102 
— French driven from Northern Circars, 103 — Dutch 
defeated at Biderra, 104 — French Reverses in South India, 
105-106 — Return to England, 107 — Misrule in Bengal, 
107-111 — Clive sent out to restore order, 111-112 — Reforms 
and Discontent, 113-115 — Famine and Parliamentary 
Inquiry, 117 — Death ; Lord North's Regulating Act of 
1773 ; The New Governor-General and Council, 118. 

VI. 

Warren Hastings 1 19-150 

Early Service, 120-122 — Rise of the Marathas, 122-123 — 
The Rohilla War, 125-127 — Story of Nanda Kumar, 129-133 
— Hastings First Governor-General, 13c — His Council and 
Philip Francis, 130-135 — "Declaration of Independence" 
and War with France, 134-135— Hastings calls on Raja of 
Benares, and Nawab of Oudh for contributions, 137-139 — 
The Begams of Oudh, 139 — Maratha War, 140-143 — War 
with Haidar Ali, 144-147 — Sea fights with French, 147- 
148 — Peace of Versailles, 148 — Pitt's New India Bill, 149— 
Impeachment of Hastings, 150 — Character, 150. 

VII. 

Lord Cornwallis and Sir John Shore . 151-160 

War with Tipu, 152-154 — Permanent Settlement, 154-158 — 
Judicial Reforms, 158-159 — Private Trade allowed, 159. 



CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. Xlll 



VIII. 

PAGE 

Establishment of British Supremacy — 

Marquess Wellesley. . . . 161-185 

War with Tipu and Capture of Seringapatam, 163-168 — 
Death of Tipu, 167-168 — Treaty of Lucknow, 169-171 — The 
Maratha Armies, 171-174 — Treaty of Bassein, 174 — Maratha 
War, 175-180 — Monson's Retreat before Holkar, 178-180— 
Siege of Bhartpur, 180 — Recall of Weilesley and " Admira- 
tion and Gratitude " of the Company, 181 — Second Adminis- 
tration of Lord Cornwallis, 181 — Mutiny at Vellore, 181- 
183 — Lord Minto, 183 — Conference of Tilsit, 183 — Capture 
of Java, 184 — Conversion of Debt, 185. 



IX. 

Marquess of Hastings — Extension of Influ- 
ence over Native States . . . 186-200 

Ghurki War, 188-190 — The Pindarf War, 190-191 — Ma- 
ratha War, 192-197 — Banking Firm of Palmer and Co., 198 
— Resignation, 198 — Indian Trade thrown open, 198-199 — 
Revenue Settlement of Madras, 199 — Christianity in India 
and a Bishop appointed, 199-200. 



X. 

Lord Amherst — First Burmese War . 201-204 

War Proclaimed, 202— Bengal Sepoys refuse to cross the 
Sea, 202 — Peace, 203 — Siege and Capture of Bhartpur, 203- 
204. 



XI. 

Lord William Bentinck — Commencement 

of Modern History of British India 205-215 

Financial Reforms, 205-206 — Revenue Settlement of North- 
West Provinces, 206 — Abolition of Sati or Widow-Burning, 
206-211 — Suppression of the Thags, 211-214 — Renewal 
of the Charter ; trade to China thrown open, 214 — Lord 
Macaulay and Education, 214-215. 



xiv CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. 



XII. 



PAGE 



Lord Auckland — Lord Ellenborough — 

Afghanistan 216-239 

Afghanistan and the Punjab, 216-217 — Treaty of Turk- 
manchi, 217 — Siege of Herat, 218 — Russian Embassy 
received at Kabul, 218-219 — War Declared, 219 — The Cam- 
paign, 219-224 — Occupation of Afghanistan, 223-226 — Out- 
break at Kabul, 227 — British Position Untenable, 229 — 
Macnaghten makes terms, 229 — Secret Negotiations, 230 — 
Assassination of Macnaghten, 230 — The Retreat, 231-233 
— Dr. Brydon reaches Jalalabad, 233-234 — The Avenging 
Army, 235-236 — Lord Ellenborough and Withdrawal Trom 
Afghanistan, 235-237 — Conquest of Sind, 237-238 — Final 
Maratha War, 238-239. 

XIII. 

Lord Hardinge — The Sikhs and Annexa- 
tion of the Punjab .... 240-259 

Ranjit Singh, Character and Conquests, 240-244 — The 
Sikhs and their Gurus, 245-246 — The Army or Khalsa, 247- 
249 — First Sikh War, 250-255 — Lord Dalhousie and the 
Second Sikh War, 255-258 — Annexation of the Punjab, 258- 
259- 

XIV. 

The Mutiny 260-317 

Annexations of Lord Dalhousie, 262-268 — Oudh, 262-264 — 
Doctrine of Lapse, 265 — Rani of Jhansi and Nana Sahib, 
266-267 — Railway Minute and Despatch of Sir C. Wood, 
268 — The People of India, 268-270 — The Sepoys and 
Previous Mutinies, 270-272 — Conversions to Christianity, 
273-274 — Unrest and Intrigues, 274-276 — The Greased 
Cartridges, 276-277 — Manghal Pandi, 278 — Mutiny at 
Meerut, 280-282— The Rebels at Delhi, 283-285— The 
English before Delhi, 285-286 — Measures of Lord Canning, 
286-288 — Defence of Arrah, 288-289 — Neill at Benares and 
Allahabad, 289-290 — Wheeler's Defence of Cawnpur, 290- 
291 — Massacre of the Garrison, 291-294 — Henry Lawrence 
secures Lucknow, 294 — Havelock's March to Cawnpur, 294- 
298 — Attempts to reach Lucknow, 299-300 — John Lawrence 
holds the Punjab, 301 — Fall of Delhi, 302-303— Havelock 
and Outram reach Lucknow, 303-305 — Sir Colin Campbell's 
Relief of Lucknow, 305-309 — Retreat, 309 — Final Capture 



CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. XV 

PAGE 

of Lucknow, 310 — Sir Hugh Rose in Central India, 311-314 
— India passes from the Company to the Queen, 314 — The 
Proclamation, 315 — Changes in the Sepoy Army, 315 — The 
Debt from the Mutiny, 315-316 — Financial Reforms, 316 — 
Death of Lord Canning, 316-317. 



XV. 

India under the Crown . . . 318-352 

Lord Elgin and Sir William Denison, 318 — The Wahab.'s, 
318-319 — The Bhutan War, 319-320 — Sir John Lawrence, 
Governor-General (Viceroy) 319 — Famine in Orissa, 321- 
322— Irrigation and Railways, 323-324 — Financial Crisis in 
Bombay, 324 — Afghanistan and " Non-intervention," 325- 
327 — Lord Mayo and Russia, 327-328 — Financial Reforms, 
328-329 — Assassination of Lord Mayo, 329-330 — Lord 
Northbrook and Afghanistan, 331-332 — Famine, Gaekwar 
of Baroda, 333-334 — Lord Lytton, 334— Queen proclaimed 
Empress of India, 334 — Famine in South India, 334 — 
License Tax, 334 — Embassy forced on Afghanistan, 334- 
336 — Assassination of Sir Louis Cavagnari, 337 — War, 337— 
341— Disaster at Maiwand, 341 — March of Sir Frederick 
Roberts, 341-342 — Reforms of Lord Ripon, 342 — Lord 
Dufferin and Annexation of Upper Burma, 342 — The Claim 
to Panjdeh, 343-344 — Lord Lansdowne and the National 
Congress, 344-345— Manipur, 345-346— Chitral, 346-351— 
Limits of British Territory, 351-352. 



XVI. 

Moral and Material Progress under 

British Rule 353-39° 

Extent, Religions, and Languages of India, 353-355 — Army 
and Defences, 356-361 — Financial Alarm, 362-364 — Agri- 
cultural Population, 364-366 — Land Tax and Revenue, 366- 
368 — Administration, 368-370 — Employment of Natives, 
370-574 — Railways, Roads, and Sanitation, 374-375 — The 
Tajisa Reservoir and Periyar Project, 375-377 — Coal, 
Petroleum, Iron, 377-378— Suez Canal, 379-380— Cotton 
and Cotton Duties, 380-382— Imports and Exports, 382-384 
— Education and Christianity, 384-387 — English and 
Universities, 387-388 — Ultimate Tendencies, 389-390. 



Index 391 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



THE NORTH GATE — OLD DELHI (Front 

by W. Daniels, R.A.) . 

MAP OF INDIA 

MAP OF ANCIENT CARAVAN ROUTES 

INDIAN SHIPS 

KING OF KOCHIN . 

OLD EAST INDIA HOUSE 

MUHAMMADANS PRAYING 

AKBAR 

FORT ST. GEORGE . 

ROBERT, LORD CLIVE . 

FORT OF ARCOT 

WARREN HASTINGS 

TIPU SULTAN 

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, CALCUTTA 

DE BOIGNE .... 

WIDOW-BURNING . 

OUTRAM .... 

KABUL . . . 

RANJIT SINGH 

SEAT OF MUTINY . 

HENRY LAWRENCE 



a Painting 

Frontispiece 
facing 



PAGE 
I 

9 

13 

18 

27 
55 

59 

72 

79 
82 

136 

153 
162 

i73 

207 

221 

228 
242 
261 

279 



XV111 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



MEMORIAL WELL AT CAWNPUR 

SIR COLIN CAMPBELL, LORD CLYDE 

FAMINE GROUP FROM MADRAS 

v v » 

KABULIS 

MAP OF AFGHANISTAN . 

MEKONG RIVER 

MAP OF STEAM NAVIGATION 

RIVER SCENE 



PAGE 

2 93 
306 

334 
334 
338 

343 
361 

379 
39° 




THE STORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 



i. 



EARLY HISTORY OF INDIAN COMMERCE. 



THE strange story of the rise and fall of once 
mighty nations is one to which we dare not close 
our eyes, firm though our belief may be in the 
abiding strength of the material resources of our 
own civilisation. The story tells how other civilisa- 
tions crumbled to pieces amid all the pride and glory 
of their manhood ; it tells how nation after nation, 
city after city, rose to opulence and power as each 
in turn became the centre of commerce between the 
East and the West, only to sink into insignificance 
and decay as if they had been struck by magic, when 
the course of that commerce drifted elsewhere. 

On the banks of the Nile an ancient civilisation 
was evolved and nurtured, the secrets of which now 
lie half-buried amid its tombs and monuments 
beneath the desert sand that sweeps ceaselessly over 
the land. Yet in the days of Joseph " all countries 
came into Egypt ... for to buy corn." Fifteen hun- 
dred years before the advent of Christ its merchants 



2 EARLY HISTORY OF INDIAN COMMERCE. 

brought indigo and muslins from India, and porcelain 
wares from far-off China, and the fame of its mariners 
was great, the memory of their going to and fro living 
long in fable. The great King Sesostris (Ramses II.), 
as narrated by the historian Diodorus the Sicilian, 
sent forth, even before the days of Moses, " a navy of 
four hundred sail into the Red Sea . . . conquered all 
Asia . . . passed over the river Ganges, and likewise 
pierced through all India to the main Ocean." 

Again in the rich alluvial tracts lying between the 
Tigris and Euphrates the Babylonians and Assyrians 
once held sway, surrounded by all the pomp and 
splendour of wealth and luxury. Their ships went 
forth to bring from India the teak wood wherewith 
the people of the city of Ur builded their palaces ; 
the gold of the East, with which they gilded their 
temples ; the Indian muslins, silks, pearls, and spices, 
of more value than fine gold. Diodorus tells us how, 
two thousand years before Christ, the famed Queen 
Semiramis carried overland a fleet of two thou- 
sand boats to the Indus, which she crossed at the 
head of three million foot-soldiers and two hundred 
thousand horsemen, and then fought the Emperor 
Stabrobates only to fall back defeated, wounded 
herself in many places. 

Now the palaces and temples of Babylon and 
Assyria lie prone, and in our museums the fine work 
of her cunning men is an empty show to the passing 
crowd. - 

Tyre, the city of the Phoenicians, grew in the days 
of Hiram to be the mistress of the seas and the 
" merchant of the people for many isles." Westward 



TYRE MISTRESS OF THE SEAS. 3 

to Carthage, to Tarshish in Spain, round Libya, till, 
as we are told by Herodotus, the sun was on their 
right, the Phoenician ships sailed, some going East 
down the Red Sea to Arabia and Ophir. 

When Solomon received a mandate from his 
father David to build the Temple to Jehovah, it 
was from Tyre that he summoned wise men to 
bring back spices and frankincense from the land of 
the Queen of Sheba, gold and silver, sandal-wood, 
ivory, apes, and peacocks from the land of Ophir, 
so that the Temple might be adorned and Solomon 
exceed " all the kings of the earth for riches and for 
wisdom." He founded " Tadmor in the Wilderness " 
as a resting-place for the caravans travelling across 
the desert towards Babylon, the " city of merchants," 
where were gathered together embroidered vestments 
and woven carpets, shawls of many colours, gems and 
pearls and brazen vessels brought from the Indies, 
from Malabar, Ceylon, and the further East by the 
Arabian mariners. 

Tyre resisted all the continued efforts of the 
Assyrians to destroy her commercial prosperity : she 
remained the mistress of the seas only to fall before 
the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, in 585 B.C., as 
of her it had been foretold by the Prophet Ezekiel, 
"they shall make spoil of thy riches and make a 
prey of thy merchandise, and they shall break down 
thy walls and destroy thy pleasant houses, and they 
shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in 
the midst of the water." 

When in 558 B.C. the Babylonian Empire fell to 
Cyrus, the wealth' from the East no longer' passed to 



4 EARLY HISTORY OF INDIAN COMMERCE. 

Phoenicia and Syria through Tadmor, but stayed with 
the Persians. Under Darius Hystaspes the Persian 
Empire advanced its conquests as far as the Punjab, 
whence it drew a yearly tribute of three hundred 
talents of gold, employing in its armies the Indian 
soldiers, who, clothed in white cotton and armed 
with bows and arrows, marched with Xerxes towards 
Greece and fought under Mardonius at Plataea. 

It was not until the time of Alexander the Great 
that the trade from India once more resumed its 
ancient route down the Persian Gulf, along the Tigris 
through Palmyra, the Tadmor of old, to enrich the 
cities of the Mediterranean. 

Alexander the Great, born in 356 B.C., succeeded 
his father, Philip of Macedon, at the age of twenty. 
Having first curbed the northern barbarians who, 
under Attalos, came swarming down on his kingdom 
from the Danube, he razed Tyre to the ground, 
reduced Syria and Egypt to submission, and founded 
the city of Alexandria. He then passed on towards 
the East, where he broke in pieces the empire of Cyrus, 
swept up the wealth of Babylon and Susa and slew 
Darius, thus avenging the insults that Xerxes and 
Mardonius had offered to the altars and temples of 
Greece, leaving nought to tell of the wealth and 
power of the Persian nation save the burned ruins of 
Persepolis and the rifled tomb of Cyrus. Marching 
into Bactria, he founded another Alexandria, now 
known to us as Herat, there pausing for three years 
before he set out, in 327 B.C., for his invasion of India. 

Crossing the river Indus, near Attock, on a bridge 
of boats, he defeated Porus, the Indian ruler of the 



ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 5 

Punjab, in a pitched battle near the well-known 
modern battlefield of Chilianwala, where, in memory 
of his victory, he established a city which he called 
Bucephala, after his charger Bucephalus, slain during 
the conflict. 

Many are the stories told of the marvels seen by 
Alexander and his soldiers in their marches through 
the sacred land of the Five Rivers. With awe- 
stricken wonder they had seen elephants seize armed 
soldiers in battle and hand them to their drivers for 
slaughter ; they had seen in the dense forests serpents, 
glittering like gold, whose sting was death, and 
pythons of huge girth capable of swallowing a deer ; 
they had heard of ants, the colour of cats and the size 
of Egyptian wolves, that dug up the gold hid in the 
sands of the deserts of Afghanistan, and mangled the 
Indians who came on camels to carry off the pre- 
cious metal ; they had seen fierce dogs seize lions and 
allow their limbs to be cut off one by one before they 
relinquished their hold ; they had razed the cities of 
the Kathians, of whom it was told that their custom 
was to burn widows along with their deceased hus- 
bands ; they had listened when Alexander was 
rebuked by the Indian sages, who told him that of 
all his conquests nothing would remain to him but 
just as much earth as would suffice to make a grave 
to cover his bones, and they had seen with astonish- 
ment the ascetic sage Kalanos, wearied of life, give 
his begging bowl and rug to the Conqueror of the 
World and ascend the funeral pyre without emotion, 
moving not as the flames slowly carried his soul to 
rest. Ere they left India one more wonder, stranger 



6 EARLY HISTORY OF INDIAN COMMERCE. 

to their eyes than all others, awaited them. As they 
sailed down the Indus for the ocean, the tide, a 
phenomenon as yet unknown to them, came rolling 
up the river, tossing on its mighty bore their frail 
ships, while, in the words of the historian Arrian, " to 
add to their terror, monstrous creatures of frightful 
aspect, which the sea had left, were seen wandering 
about." The rising tide rescuing them from their 
position, Alexander's invading army gladly turned its 
back on India, leaving behind more or less permanent 
colonies of Macedonians and allies in Bactria, Taxila, 
the Punjab, and Sind. 

From the writings of the scientific men and 
historians who accompanied the Macedonians on 
their raid into India, the Western world obtained the 
first reliable accounts respecting the social and 
religious life of the people of India at this early 
period. 

After the death of Alexander, India (as far as con- 
quered) and Bactria fell to Seleukos Nikator, who 
made an alliance with the renowned Indian monarch 
Chandragupta, to whom he gave his daughter in 
marriage, sending Megasthenes to reside as ambas- 
sador at the capital Palibothra, said to have been a 
mighty city, ten miles long by two miles broad, 
strongly defended, entered by sixty gates, its entire 
army numbering 400,000 men with 20,000 cavalry. 

For many centuries the interchange of ideas 
between the East and West continued, the wide- 
spreading influence of which is even at present but 
little realised and but seldom acknowledged. 

Asoka, the Constantine of Buddhism, grandson of 



EAST AND WEST. 7 

Chandragupta, ascended the throne about 260 B.C., 
and from the inscriptions which he caused to be 
graven on rocks we learn that the intercommunication 
between the East and the West was close enough at 
this period to enable him to send forth missionaries 
to Antiochus of Syria, to Ptolemy Philadelphus of 
Egypt, to Antigonus of Macedon, to Megas of 
Cyrene, and to Alexander of Epirus, to proclaim in 
their lands the gospel of self-control and respect for 
all life as taught by Buddha. 

Pliny, who died 79 A.D., lamented the drain of gold 
from Rome to India, which in his days amounted to 
the sum of ,£2,000,000 sterling, sent annually in 
exchange for silks, pearls, sapphires, gems, cinnamon, 
spices, and other Eastern luxuries, for which fabulous 
sums were paid, and Roman coins of all the em- 
perors, from Augustus to Hadrian, are still dug up in 
numbers all over South India. 

It is now almost certain that from the West, 
probably through Palmyra, India first learned to 
construct architectural buildings and to carve in 
stone, having, previous to the invasion of Alexander 
the Great, worked out her own artistic ideals, as far 
as we know, in wood. 

There still remains unexplained the strange re- 
semblance in form between the Indian and Classical 
drama, and the close connection between early 
Indian and Greek philosophy. 

The Indian astronomer Garga, who wrote in the 
first century B.C., said that the Greeks were very 
barbarians, yet he hesitated not to confess that their 
astronomy was worthy of study. Later astronomers, 



8 MARLY HISTORY OF INDIAN COMMERCE. 

such as Aryabhatta and Varaha Mitra, not only 
adopted the Greek zodiac and its divisions, but 
made use of the Greek names slightly orientalised. 

There were many routes by which this intercom- 
munication of ideas, religious, artistic, and social, could 
have taken place. There was the well-known route 
by the Persian Gulf through Palmyra, a city which 
became so renowned that Aurelian, jealous of its 
wealth and power, razed it to the ground in 273 A.D., 
and carried off its Queen Zenobia. Arab mariners 
also sailed from India and the further East, keeping 
close to the coast till they reached Berenice in the 
Red Sea, whence the goods were transported to 
Coptos, thence down the Nile to Alexandria. Under 
such emperors as the cruel and dissipated Corn- 
modus, the plundering barbarian Caracalla, and the 
infamous Eleogabalus, the wealth that came from 
the East through Alexandria to *the imperial city of 
Rome passed away to Constantinople, founded in 
320 A.D., and to the rising cities along the Medi- 
terranean. 

So the trade between the East and the West grew 
and flourished till suddenly a new power arose, 
claiming for itself the temporal and spiritual supre- 
macy over the whole known world. 

From the deserts of Arabia came forth the haughty 
message to Christendom, that Muhammad had pro- 
claimed himself as the only Prophet of the One 
True God. To all idolaters he gave the choice 
between accepting his mission and teachings, and of 
being put to the sword ; while all Christians and 
Jews were to be subdued and made to pay tribute 



MUHAMMAD. 



9 



to his followers, who now came swarming from their 
tents, drunk with a new religious fanaticism, eager to 
seek fresh homes in the stately palaces of the lands 
they were soon to overrun. 





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To the successors of Augustus and Artaxerxes 
summonses were sent, calling on them to bow down 
and acknowledge the Divine mission of the new 
Prophet. The Roman Empire — with its capital at 



lO EARLY HISTORY OF INDIAN COMMERCE. 

Constantinople — then extended over all the lands on 
the borders of the Mediterranean Sea, its commands 
being obeyed from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, 
while in Persia the ancient dynasty of Cyrus and 
Darius had been reinstated when Artaxerxes, in the 
third century, was proclaimed king, and the religion 
of Zoroaster, the belief in Ormuzd and Ahriman, the 
contending powers of light and darkness, once more 
restored. 

In answer to the summons of the Prophet, the 
Roman emperor, Heraclius, fearing danger from 
Arabia, sent back presents ; the proud Persian 
monarch tore the letters he received in pieces and 
scattered it to the winds, hearing which Muhammad 
swore that so he would scatter the Persian power. 

Within the space of eight years Bostra, Damascus, 
Heliopolis, Jerusalem, Aleppo and Antioch fell before 
the Crescent, and Syria passed for the next three 
hundred years under the sway of the followers of 
Muhammad, Persia falling in 636 A.D., after the battle 
of Kadesia. In 640 Amru marched into Egypt and 
took possession of Alexandria, leaving the Arabian 
conquerors in command of the Red Sea and the 
Persian Gulf, the two great trade routes from the 
East. 

One route alone remained by which Eastern pro- 
duce could reach the cities of the Mediterranean free 
from the prohibitory dues exacted by the Muham- 
madan conquerors : that by the Indus along the 
ancient route by the banks of the Oxus, across to 
the Caspian, thence to the Black Sea, Constantinople, 
and the Mediterranean. To gain possession of this 



CITIES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN. I I 

route, and to avoid the duties enforced at Alexandria, 
amounting to one-third the value of all produce 
exported, Venice, founded in 452 A.D., on the islets of 
the Adriatic by fugitives from North Italy, strove 
incessantly, knowing well that alone by a command 
of the Eastern trade could she rise to be mistress 
of the seas. To the pilgrims of the Fourth Crusade 
she agreed to give shipping if they would but for a 
time forget their holy mission and aid in reducing her 
rival Constantinople. The compact was made. In 
1204 Constantinople fell, the rich homes of its peace- 
ful citizens being given over to rapine and flames, its 
art treasures, the finest and most prized that the 
world has ever known, being broken in pieces and 
trampled underfoot by the marauding crusaders and 
hired mercenaries of the merchants of Venice. Count 
Baldwin of Flanders was enthroned Emperor of the 
East, the Venetians holding the forts to gain command 
over the Eastern trade. Of these advantages on the 
Black Sea Venice was, however, soon deprived by 
Genoa, Pisa, and Florence — cities now eager to enter 
into the competition for the monopoly of the gems, 
spices, and silks of India sent to the further West in 
exchange for Easterling or sterling silver. Pisa gave 
up the struggle after her defeat at Meloria in 1284, 
and in 1406 fell subject to Florence, which, unuer 
the Medici, had become the city of bankers for all 
nations. Genoa fought on down to the fifteenth 
century when Venice again became supreme, selling 
the valued products of India to the Flemish mer- 
chants who sailed with them to Sluys, then the 
seaport town of Bruges, to Bergen in Norway, 



12 EARLY HISTORY OF INDIAN COMMERCE. 

Novgorod in Russia, to the many associated towns 
of the Hanseatic League, and also to their steel- 
yard or warehouse on the Thames. 

In these Western cities it was known that the 
costly goods they so prized came from the East, but 
the way there was unknown. In Portugal Prince 
Henry the Navigator spent his life in endeavouring 
to discover how his ships might reach the Indies by 
sailing round Africa. In i486 Bartholomew Diaz 
went south with three ships, and discovered what he 
called " The Cape of Tempests," renamed in joy 
" The Cape of Good Hope " by King John II. 

In 1492 Columbus, a Genoese, after offering his 
services in vain to Genoa, Portugal, and England, 
sailed away to the West, hoping thus to reach India, 
and discovered America. 

When Emmanuel succeeded John II. as King of 
Portugal, he resolved to send a gentleman of his 
household, Vasco da Gama, to find out if land lay 
beyond the wild southern seas. 

On the 8th of July, 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed 
from the Tagus with three small ships, the Sam 
Gabriel the Sam Rafael, and the Sam Miguel each of 
some 100 to 120 tons burden, having crews amounting 
in all to 170 men. 

By the time Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of 
Good Hope the pilots and sailors were so wearied 
from the incessant labour of working the pumps to 
keep the frail ships afloat, and so terrified by the 
heavy seas, that they mutinied and demanded that 
their leader should turn back and no further seek 
to brave the unknown perils of a trackless ocean. 




^"•'' ^V ^ ■"■• : .,■::,-,'■ ■'■/:...^::,f:\^ 



14 EARLY HISTORY OF INDIAN COMMERCE. 

Vasco da Gama at once placed the pilots in irons, 
threw all the charts and instruments of navigation 
overboard, declaring that God would guide him, 
and other aid he required not ; if that aid failed, 
neither he nor any of the crews would ever again 
see Portugal. So the ships had to toil on, many of 
the sailors dying of scurvy, a disease now heard of 
for the first time in history. Their labours were at 
length rewarded. Eleven months after they had 
left home they sighted the west coast of India, and 
cast anchor near the city of the Zamorin, or Ruler 
of the Seas, whence many people came crowding 
to the beach, wondering greatly at the Portuguese 
ships. 

The Zamorin and his Indian subjects were willing 
to open up a friendly intercourse with Vasco da 
Gama and his sailors, but the Arab mariners, or 
Moors, as they were called, who for many centuries 
had held in their own hands the trade between the 
west coast of India and the Persian Gulf, or Red Sea, 
were unwilling to see any rivals in their lucrative 
business. Having succeeded in inducing Vasco da 
Gama to come on shore, they carried him off on 
various pretexts through the malarious lagoons bor- 
dering the coast, hoping that he might resent 
their treatment and so give them some excuse to 
slay him and drive away his ships. By quiet patience 
he eluded all the plots laid against him, until his 
ships were laden with such scanty stores of pepper, 
cinnamon, and spices as his captains were able \o 
purchase. Vasco da Gama at length obtained his 
release, and departed from Calicut, vowing to come 



THE PORTUGUESE. I 5 

back and wage a war of extermination against the 
Moors — a vow which he and his successors ever 
afterwards barbarously and ruthlessly endeavoured 
to fulfil. From Calicut he sailed back towards 
Cannanore, where we hear, as recorded by Gaspar 
Correa r in his account of Vasco da Gama's 
voyages, of one of the many strange prophecies told 
in the East. It is there recorded, " In this country 
of India they are much addicted to soothsayers 
and diviners. . . . According to what was known 
later, there had been in this country of Canna- 
nore a diviner so diabolical in whom they believed 
so much that they wrote down all that he said, 
and preserved it like prophecies that would come to 
pass. They held a legend from him in which it was 
said that the whole of India would be taken and 
ruled over by a very distant king, who had white 
people, who would do great harm to those who 
were not their friends ; and this was to happen a 
long time later, and he left signs of when it would 
be. In consequence of the great disturbance caused 
by the sight of these ships, the King was very 
desirous of knowing what they were ; and he spoke 
to his diviners, asking them to tell him what ships 
were those and whence they came. The diviners 
conversed with their devils, and told him that the 
ships belonged to a great king, and came from very 
far, and according to what they found written, these 
were the people who were to seize India by war and 
peace, as they had already told him many times, 

1 " Lendas da India," translated by the Hon. E. J. Stanley for the 
Hakluyt Society. :."".'; "'."*; ~ 



l6 EARLY HISTORY OF INDIAN COMMERCE. 

because the period which had been written down 
was concluded." 

The king and his counsellors were so assured of 
the truth of this prophecy, that they received the 
Portuguese with great honour and friendship, pressing 
on them more presents and goods than could be 
stored away in the ships, which were soon able to 
sail away with ample cargoes of pepper, cinnamon, 
ginger, cloves, mace, and nutmegs. 

Such was the commencement of the modern 
history of commerce between the East and the West. 
Vasco da Gama reached Portugal in 1499 to the 
great delight of the king, who immediately assumed 
the title of " Lord of the Conquest, Navigation, and 
Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and China," 
a title confirmed in 1502 by a Bull from Pope 
Alexander VI. 

The profits of the voyage being found to be sixty 
times the expenses incurred, King Emmanuel deter- 
mined to send to the East " another large fleet of 
great and strong ships which could stow much 
cargo, and which, if they returned in safety, would 
bring him untold riches." 

Vasco da Gama never forgave the Moors for their 
treatment of him on his first arrival at Calicut. When 
he visited the coast again, in 1 502, he captured two 
ships and sixteen small vessels, and having cut off 
the hands and ears and noses of eight hundred 
unfortunate Moors, who formed the crews, he broke 
their teeth with staves, placed them all in a small 
ship which he set on fire and allowed to drift ashore, 
so that the Zamorin might judge of the fierce wrath 



Z AMOR IN OF CALICUT. \*J 

of the Portuguese sailors. No wonder the Portuguese 
historian writes, as recorded in the Introduction to 
the Hakluyt Society's account by Correa, " The con- 
quest of India is repugnant to us, and strikes us with 
horror, on account of the injustice and barbarity oj 
the conquerors, their frauds, extortions and san- 
guinary hatreds ; whole cities ravaged and given to 
the flames ; amid the glare of conflagrations and the 
horrid lightning of artillery, soldiers converted into 
executioners after victory." 

The native princes were determined not to sur- 
render without one final struggle. Against Cochin, 
where Duarte Pacheco, a Portuguese captain, had 
been left in command of a little over one hundred 
Portuguese soldiers and three hundred Malabar native 
troops, the Zamorin of Calicut advanced at the head 
of an immense army of fifty thousand troops and 
numerous cannon, aided by a sea-force of some three 
hundred ships. 

For five months he strove to drive the handful of 
Portuguese from India. Time after time his troops 
were defeated, ten thousand of them being slain, and 
all his ships sunk save four. He at length retreated, 
finding that his undisciplined native troops could not 
avail against European soldiers, and Duarte Pacheco 
was left victorious, the first to show to the West 
the possibility of founding an empire in India, and 
the first of the long line of heroes whose services to 
their country were repaid by neglect or insult, poverty 
or death. 

Before the trade from the East finally passed to 
the Atlantic the Portuguese had to fight one more 

3 




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4 



DOM LOU REN CO DE ALMEIDA. 1 9 

fight. The Sultan of Egypt, seeing that the course 
of commerce, through his dominions to the Medi- 
terranean ports, was passing to the new route round 
the Cape of Good Hope, resolved to gather together 
a great fleet and send it to India to destroy the 
Portuguese ships now trading at Cochin, Cannanore, 
and Quilon. Dom Lourenco de Almeida, aged 
eighteen, son of Dom Francisco de Almeida, the first 
great Portuguese Viceroy of India, met the Egyptian 
and an allied native fleet off Chaul, where, after two 
days' fighting, the Portuguese were defeated and 
forced to retreat. 

Dom Lourenco's ship was surrounded, and he him- 
self wounded. Disdaining to yield, he fell fighting 
amid a brave band of heroes, as told in Mickle's 
well-known translation of Camoens : — 

" Bound to the mast the god-like hero stands, 
Waves his proud sword and cheers his woeful bands ; 
Though winds and seas their wonted aid deny, 
To yield he knows not, but he knows to die." 

With fierce wrath the Viceroy hastened to avenge 
the death of his son. He ravaged and burned the 
hostile city of Dabhol, scattered the Egyptian and 
allied native fleet of two hundred ships, plundering 
and burning them all with the exception of four, and 
slaying three thousand of the Moors, thus establishing 
the supremacy of the Portuguese in the Eastern seas. 
The same sad fate, allotted to so many who strove 
to knit together the East and the West, followed the 
footsteps of the first great Viceroy of India. De- 
prived, by orders from home, of his command, he 



20 EARLY HISTORY OF INDIAN COMMERCE. 

departed from India in proud anger to meet with 
an ignominious death in a petty fray with some 
Kaffir savages at Saldanha Bay in Africa — perhaps 
a happy release from the slow, cankering life of 
neglect and contumely meted out to Pacheco, La 
Bourdonnais, Dupleix, Lally, Clive, Hastings, and 
many others who lived to be judged by their fellow- 
countrymen, whose fight they had fought and won. 

For a century the Portuguese held the " Gorgeous 
East in fee," trading unmolested from the Cape of 
Good Hope to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, to 
the Spice Islands and China, their possessions along 
the Atlantic, in Africa and Brazil, filling up the full 
measure of a mighty empire destined to fall to pieces 
and sink to decay when the trade from the East 
passed from its hands. 

Francisco de Almeida, the first Viceroy, saw clearly 
that Portugal could never establish a great colonising 
empire in India, that territorial possessions would 
prove too heavy a drain on her population and 
resources. His constant admonition to King Em- 
manuel was that the trade with India would ulti- 
mately fall to the nation whose forces ruled the 
seas. 

His successors, brave and wise men as many of 
them were, saw but the immediate present ; they 
possessed not the divine gift, granted but to few of 
India's early administrators, such as Almeida, Dupleix, 
Clive, and Hastings, of viewing all events that 
passed before them as mere phases in the world's 
history, directed and moulded by the irresistible 
principles which govern the destiny of nations, and 



DUTCH AND ENGLISH. 21 

not as springing from the irresponsible actions of men 
or chance decision of battles. 

Alfonso de Albuquerque, the next Viceroy, deemed 
that by the prowess and valour of his European 
soldiers he could establish a lasting empire for his 
people in the East In 1510 he captured Goa, which 
soon grew to be the wealthiest and most powerful 
city in the East ; he reduced Ormuz, thus closing the 
Persian Gulf to the Arab traders ; he built a fortress 
at Socotra to command the Red Sea, and left the 
coast from the Cape of Good Hope to China in 
the hands of his successors. 

Portugal held the commerce of the East, sending 
its goods north to Bruges, Antwerp, Amsterdam, 
Nuremberg, and Augsburg, until she became united 
with Spain in 1580, when the Dutch, who, under 
William of Orange, had in 1572 shaken off the 
Spanish yoke, could no longer trade with Lisbon. It 
was then that the Dutch, determining not to be de- 
prived of their share in the Eastern trade, sent their 
navigators to the north-east, hoping to discover some 
new route to India and learn something of its com- 
merce. 

The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 left the 
seas free for the Dutch and English to sail south 
round the Cape of Good Hope and take part in 
the commerce of the Eastern world, independent of 
Portugal. 

In 1595 one Jan Huygen van Linschoten, a West 
Friesland burgher, who had travelled to India with 
the Archbishop of Goa, returned home after thirteen 
years' residence in the East and published a cele- 



22 EARLY HISTORY OF INDIAN COMMERCE. 

brated book, in which he gave a full account of the 
route to India as well as of the commerce carried on 
there by the Portuguese. In 1595 the Dutch de- 
spatched four ships under Cornelius Houtman to sail 
round the Cape of Good Hope; in 1602 trading 
factories were set up in Ceylon and along the west 
coast of India, and in the farther East from Batavia 
in Java to Japan and China. 

By this time news had also reached England of the 
wealth of India. Thomas Stevens, the first English- 
man who ever visited India, had sailed from Lisbon 
to Goa in 1579 and had become Rector of the Jesuit 
College at Salsette. From there, in a series of letters 
written to his father, he aroused the interest of the 
English people in the East by the vivid account he 
gave of the trade of the Portuguese and the fertility 
of the land. 

In 1583 three English merchants, Ralph Fitch, 
James Newberry, and William Leedes, started over- 
land for India. They were made prisoners by the 
Portuguese at Ormuz, to the despair of Newberry, 
who wrote : " It may be that they will cut our throtes 
or keepe us long in prison, God's will be done." They 
were, however, spared, and sent on to Goa where 
they saw Thomas Stevens and the celebrated Jan van 
Linschoten. Escaping, after many adventures, from 
Goa, they travelled through a great part of India, 
giving in letters home an interesting account of the 
country and the customs of the people, all strange 
and wonderful to these first English travellers. From 
Bijapur, Fitch writes that there " they bee great 
idolaters, and they have their idols standing in the 



EARLY TRAVELLERS. 2$ 

woods which they call Pagodes. Some bee like a 
Cowe, some like a Monkie, some like Buffles, some 
like peacockes, and some like the devill." Golconda 
is described as " a very faire towne, pleasant, with 
faire houses of bricke and timber." Fitch then made 
his way to Masulipatam, on the east coast, " whether 
come many shippes out of India, Pegu and Sumatra 
very richly laden with pepper, spices and other 
commodities." Agra is described as " a very great 
citie and populous, built with stone, having faire 
and large streetes." " Fatepore Sikri and Agra are 
two very great cities, either of them much greater 
than London and very Populous. Between Agra and 
Fatepore are twelve miles and all the way is a market 
of victualls and other things as full as though a man 
were still in a towne." " Hither," we are further told, 
" is a great resort of merchants from Persia and out 
of India, and very much merchandise of silke and 
clothe and of precious stones, both Rubies, Diamants 
and Pearles." 

John Newberry departed from Agra for home, 
journeying through Persia ; William Leedes took 
service as jeweller with the Emperor Akbar, and 
Ralph Fitch continued his travels, proceeding towards 
Bengal, noting the power and influence of the Brahman 
priests, who, he says, are ''a kind of craftie people 
worse than the Jewes." The myriad temples, the 
bathing ghats, and sacred wells of Benares call forth 
his wonder, but one custom struck him with more 
surprise than all other things he had heard of or seen 
in the course of his travels — the custom of widow- 
burning. " Wives here," he writes, " doe burne with 



24 EARLY HISTORY OF INDIAN COMMERCE. 

their husbands when they die, if they will not, their 
heads be shaven, and never any account is made of 
them afterward." Travelling from Benares towards 
Patna he found that the road was infested with bands 
of robbers ; nevertheless he managed to reach Bhutan 
in safety, returning to " Hugeli, which is the place 
where the Portugals keepe in the country of Bengala," 
and thence sailing for home he arrived at Ceylon, 
where the king was very powerful, " his guard are a 
thousand thousand men, and often he commeth to 
Columbo, which is the place where the Portugals have 
their fort, with an hundred thousand men and many 
elephants. But they be naked people all of them, 
yet many of them be good with their pieces which be 
muskets." 

Fitch reached home in 1591, after an absence of 
eight years from his native country, where, in the 
meantime, more certain and accurate knowledge of 
the route to India and the Portuguese commerce had 
been gained. 

In the year 1587 a large Portuguese ship named 
the San Filippe had been captured by Sir Francis 
Drake off the Azores on its way from Goa to Lisbon, 
and amid great rejoicing towed into Plymouth, where 
its papers were examined and its cargo of Eastern 
produce found to be of ,£108,049 value. 

A few years later another great ship, the largest in 
the Portuguese navy, the Madre di Di'os, was also cap- 
tured off the Azores on its way home from India, 
brought into Dartmouth, and her cargo of jewels, 
spices, nutmegs, silks, and cottons sold for ^"150,000; 
the papers found in her giving a full account of the 



GEORGE RAYMOND AND JAMES LANCASTER. 2$ 

trade and settlements of the Portuguese in the 
Eastern seas. 

In 1 591 three ships, the Penelope, the Merchant 
Royal, and the Edward Bonadventure, sailed under 
command of George Raymond and James Lan- 
caster, on the first voyage to India from England. 
By the time they reached the Cape of Good Hope 
scurvy had so weakened the sailors, and the tem- 
pestuous seas and storms so damaged the ships, that 
the Merchant Royal had to be sent home with fifty of 
the crews. Six days after, on " the 14th of September, 
we were encountered," witnesses James Lancaster in 
his account as recorded by Hakluyt, " with a mighty 
storme and extreeme gusts of winde, wherein we lost 
our general's companie, and could never heare of 
him nor his ship any more." So Lancaster had to 
sail on, the Bonadventure alone being left out of the 
three ships to encounter more sore perils and trials, 
for " foure dayes after this uncomfortable separation 
in the morning toward ten of the clocke we had a 
terrible clap of thunder, which slew foure of our men 
outright, their necks being wrung in sonder without 
speaking any word, and of 94 men there was not one 
untouched, whereof some were stricken blind, others 
were bruised in the legs and armes and others in their 
brests, others were drawen out at length as though 
they had been racked. But (God be thanked) they 
all recovered saving only the foure which were slaine 
out right." 

Lancaster reached India, cruised about for some 
time in the Eastern seas, pillaging such Portuguese 
vessels as he captured, and then sailed for home, passed 



26 EARLY HISTORY OF INDIAN COMMERCE. 

the Cape, reached the West Indies and the Bermudas, 
where he and nearly all his remaining sailors landed 
on a desert island, " but in the night time, about 
twelve of the clocke, our ship did drive away with 
five men and a boy onely in it ; our carpenter secretly 
cut their own cable, leaving nineteen of us on land 
without boate or anything, to our great discomfort." 

From this position Lancaster and the few survivors 
of the ill-fated expedition were rescued by a French 
ship, and arrived at Dieppe on the 24th of May, 1594, 
having "spent in this voyage three yeeres, five weekes 
and two dayes, which the Portugals performe in halfe 
the time." 

In 1596 a second effort was made to reach India, 
Captain Benjamin Wood sailing in charge of the 
Bea? r , the Bears Whelp, and Benjamin, but neither he 
nor his ships were ever heard of again. 

Renewed and more vigorous efforts were now 
necessary, for the Dutch, were gradually monopolising 
the trade with the East. In 1599, they raised the 
price of pepper in the English market from 3s. to 8s. 
per pound, and the Lord Mayor of London imme- 
diately called together a meeting of the principal City 
merchants to consider what course should be pursued. 
On the 22nd of September, Sir Stephen Soame, the 
Lord Mayor, sundry aldermen, and others of less 
dignity, such as grocers, drapers, vintners, leather- 
sellers, skinners, and haberdashers, met together at 
Founders' Hall, Lothbury, and there agreed — " with 
their owne handes to venter in the pretended voiage 
to the Easte Indies, the which it may please the Lord 
to prosper." 




OLD EAST INDIA HOUSE. 

{From "Gentleman's Magazine," 1784.) 



II. 



RISE OF THE HONOURABLE EAST INDIA COMPANY. 

ONE year after the merchants of London had first 
assembled together they received the announcement 
that it was Her Majesty's pleasure " that they should 
proceade in their purpose," the Lords of the Council 

27 



28 EISE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. 

shortly after admonishing them " that you should 
therein use all expedicion and possible speede to 
advance the same, knowing that otherwyse you may 
much prejudice yourselves by your staggeringe and 
delaies." 

Four ships, the Malice Scourge, of 600 tons, the 
Hector, of 300 tons, the Ascension, of 260, the 
Susan, of 240, and a small pinnace were accordingly 
purchased and made ready for sailing when a diffi- 
culty arose. The Lord Treasurer strove to place Sir 
Edward Michelborne, a Court favourite, in charge of 
the expedition — a proposal which the City merchants 
objected to, giving as their reason that " they purpose 
not to employ anie gent in any place of charge or 
comaundent in the said voiage," their intention being 
"to sort their business with men of their own quality." 
The Malice Scourge, rechristened the Red Dragon, 
was placed in charge of James Lancaster, with a crew 
of 202 men, Captain John Davis, the famous North- 
West navigator, being pilot ; John Middleton was 
made commander of the Hector, with 108 men ; 
William Brand commander of the Ascension, with 82 
men ; and John Heywood commander of the Susan, 
with 88 men; the Guest, a small vessel of 130 tons, 
being purchased to accompany the fleet as a 
victualler. 

On the 31st of December, 1600, the merchants 
received " The Charter of Incorporation of the East 
India Company by the name of the Governor and 
Company of Merchants of London trading into the 
East Indies," with power to export ^"30,000 in bullion 
out of the country, the same to be returned at the 



FIRST VOYAGE. 20, 

end of the voyage, the Charter being granted for a 
term of fifteen years. 

On the 2nd of April, 1601, the four ships started 
on their memorable voyage, having on board the sum 
of ^28,742 in bullion, and £6,860 worth of British 
staples, such as cutlery, glass, and hides, wherewith 
they hoped to open up a trade in the Eastern seas. 
This laudable enterprise they commenced, after the 
fashion of the times, by capturing, on the 21st of 
June, a Portuguese ship bound from Lisbon to the 
East Indies, and taking from her 146 butts of wine, 
much oil and other goods, " which was a great helpe 
to us in the whole voyage after." By the time the 
ships reached Saldanha Bay, now known as Table 
Bay, the crews of three of the ships were so weakened 
by scurvy, from which disease 105 in all died, that 
they had not strength left even to let go their anchors, 
the crew of the Dragon alone escaping, as they 
abstained as much as possible from eating salt meat 
and drank freely of lemon juice. James Lancaster 
went ashore to " seeke some refreshing for our sicke 
and weake men, where hee met with certaine of the 
Countrey people and gave them divers trifles, as 
knives and pieces of old iron and such like, and made 
signes to them to bring him downe Sheepe and Oxen. 
For he spake to them in the cattels Language, which 
was never changed at the Confusion of Babell, which 
was Moath for oxen and kine, and Baa for Sheepe, 
which language the people understood very well 
without any interpreter." 

Recovering their health and strength they sailed 
east and sighted Sumatra on the 2nd of June, 1602, 



30 RISE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. 

and on the 5th of June anchored off Achin. Here 
a treaty of peace was drawn up between James 
Lancaster and the King, who took more interest 
in cock-fighting than in listening to the letters from 
Queen Elizabeth to " her loving brother, the great 
and mightie King of Achem." Seeing that he could 
obtain but small store of goods or pepper, on account 
of failure in the previous year's harvests, " the generall 
daily grew full of thought how to lade his shippes 
to save his owne credit, the merchants' estimation 
that set him aworke, and the reputation of his 
countrey : considering what a foule blot it would 
be to them all in regard to the nations about us, 
seeing there were enough merchandise to be bought 
in the Indies, yet he should be likely to return 
home with empty ships." Sailing away to the 
Straits of Malacca a Portuguese ship of 1,900 tons 
was sighted, on the 3rd of October, and, as told in 
the journals of the voyage, transcribed in " Purchas 
his Pilgrimes," published in 1625, "within five or six 
daies we had unladen her of 950 packes of Calicoes 
and Pintados, besides many packets of merchandise : 
she had in her much rice and other goods whereof we 
made small account." In the simple narrative we are 
further told that " the Generall was very glad of this 
good hap, and very thankfull to God for it, and as he 
told me he was much bound to God that had eased 
him of a very heavy care, and that he could not be 
thankfull enough to Him for this blessing given him. 
For, saith he, He hath not onely supplied my neces- 
sities, to lade these ships I have ; but hath given me 
as much as will lade as many more shippes as I have, 
if I had them to lade." 



SECOND VOYAGE. 3 1 

Delighted at their good fortune they sailed on to 
Bantam, in Java, where " wee traded here very peace- 
ably, although the Javians be reckoned among the 
greatest Pickers and Thieves in the world." 

The ships returned to England in the summer of 
1603, the Court Minutes of the Company stating that 
on the 1 6th of June of that year the Ascension 
appeared in the river with a cargo of 210,000 lbs. of 
pepper, 1,100 lbs. of cloves, 6,030 lbs. of cinnamon, 
and 4,080 lbs. of gum lacquer. The Lord High 
Admiral demanded one-tenth of the value of the 
prizes taken at sea, and a further sum of fyiy had to 
be paid for Customs dues ; nevertheless, the voyage 
was successful enough to encourage the East India 
Company to subscribe together a sum of ,£60,450 for 
a second expedition which sailed in 1604 in charge 
of Henry Middleton. 

Reaching Bantam, two of the four ships which 
formed the fleet were laden with pepper and the 
other two sailed on to Amboyna. The Portuguese 
and Dutch were here found to be engaged in a 
fierce war. Each was determined to gain the mono- 
poly of the trade in the Moluccas, but both were 
equally determined to combine against a new com- 
petitor. Middleton, finding himself unable either to 
open up factories, or enter into friendly negotiations 
with the natives, was obliged to depart with his ships 
unladen. Although one of the ships was lost at sea, 
the Company, on casting up their accounts, found 
they had made a profit of 95 per cent, on the entire 
capital subscribed for their two first ventures. 

This lucrative source of wealth soon brought forth 



32 RISE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. 

competitors eager to share in its profits. In 1604 
James I., in direct contravention of the Company's 
exclusive right of trading with the East, gave permis- 
sion to Sir Edward Michelborne, whom the London 
merchants had refused to place in charge of their 
first expedition, to sail on a voyage of discovery to 
China, Japan, Corea, and Cathay. Starting with 
the Tiger, a ship of 240 tons, and a small pinnace, 
the Tigers Whelp, Sir Edward Michelborne sailed 
east, where he captured and pillaged some Chinese 
vessels. The voyage is memorable for the fact that 
the simple-souled John Davis, the North-West 
navigator, who accompanied the expedition, was 
treacherously slain by some Japanese pirates whom 
he allowed to come on board his ship under the 
belief that they were peaceable traders bringing some 
useful information. 

Notwithstanding the interference of these private 
traders or " interlopers " the Company continued to 
send their ships to the East. In 1606 three ships 
went to Bantam for pepper and to Amboyna for 
cloves ; the latter sold in England for ,£36,287, the 
original cost being £2,947 I S S - The two ships sent 
out on the fourth voyage in 1607 were lost, neverthe- 
less the Company made on its third and fifth voyages 
a net profit of 234J per cent. 

By degrees trade was opened up at Surat and 
Cambay, where cloths and calicoes were purchased 
and carried to Bantam and the Moluccas to be ex- 
changed for the more valued spices and pepper. The 
Charter, as renewed by James I. in 1609, granted the 
Company not only the exclusive right in perpetuity 



PORTUGUESE OPPOSITION. 33 

of trading to the East Indies but also the right 
of holding and alienating land — concessions which 
inspired so much confidence that the subscriptions 
for the sixth voyage reached the sum of ^"82,000. 
The sixth voyage is memorable for the fact that the 
largest merchant ship then in England, the Trades 
Increase, of 1,100 tons, was sent out to the East. 

The Portuguese made strenuous efforts to pre- 
vent the adventurers trading at Surat, whereon the 
English commander, Sir Henry Middleton, captured 
one of their ships laden with Indian goods, so that 
the profits of the voyage amounted X.o £\2\ 13s. 4d. 
per cent. The Trades Increase, however, struck on 
a rock and subsequently capsized — a calamity which 
so affected Sir Henry Middleton that he died of grief. 

The power and trade of the Portuguese had 
rapidly waned from 1580, when they were united 
with Spain under Philip II. ; but in the East they 
still strove to hold their once opulent settlements. 
In 161 2 four Portuguese galleons and twenty-five 
frigates attacked the English fleet under Captain 
Best at Swally, off Surat, and were driven off with 
heavy loss. In 161 5 they made one final effort to 
drive from the vicinity of Goa and Surat the English, 
whom they describe in a letter to the King as "thieves, 
disturbers of States, and a people not to be permitted 
in a commonwealth/' Eight galleons, three lesser 
ships, and sixty frigates came up with the New 
Year's Gift, the Hector, the Merchants Hope, and the. 
Solomon, off Swally, the natives anxiously looking on 
to see the contest between the two great European 
powers. Three of the Portuguese ships drew alongside 

4 



34 RISE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. 

the Merchant's Hope, which was boarded, but after an 
obstinate fight they were driven off with a loss of 
some five hundred men, the three ships set on fire and 
allowed to drift ashore, the rest of the fleet retreating 
during the night after a severe cannonade. 

For many reasons it was impossible that Portugal 
could ever have established a permanent empire in 
India. The union with Spain, the smallness of her 
population, the deterioration of her soldiers from 
habits of pampered luxury and intermarriage with 
native women, added to their heavy losses in war, are 
facts lying on the surface. Recent researches have 
brought to light graver reasons why the native powers 
themselves were nothing loth to be relieved from the 
contamination of a so-called civilisation introduced 
by foreigners who had lived amongst them and grown 
wealthy for a period of over one hundred years. The 
Portuguese historians tell how the tomb of the great 
Portuguese Viceroy, Don Francisco de Almeida, 
was, for many years after his death, visited both by 
Muhammadans and Hindus, who prayed that he 
might rise up and defend them from the barbarities, 
cruelties, and greed of his successors. From 1560 the 
tortures and the burnings at the stake of supposed 
witches, sorcerers, and Christians suspected of heresy, 
native and European alike, not only made every per- 
son within its jurisdiction fearful for his honour, life, 
and liberty, but also sent a shudder of horror through 
Europe when the full tale of its iniquities was made 
known. The whole history is summed up by the 
Portuguese editor of Correa's history : "Perfidy pre- 
siding over almost all compacts and negotiations . . f 



PORTUGUESE LOSSES. 35 

conversions to Christianity serving as a transparent 
veil to covetousness : these are the fearful pictures 
from which we would desire to turn away our eyes. 
. . . It was, therefore, to this moral leprosy, to these 
internal cankers, that Gaspar Correa chiefly alluded, 
and to which Diogo do Conto attributed the loss of 
India, saying that it had been won with much truth, 
fidelity, valour, and perseverance, and that it was lost 
through the absence of those virtues." x 

From their settlements and fortresses in the Eastern 
seas the Portuguese were rapidly driven out by the 
English and Dutch. In 1622 Ormuz, at the entrance 
of the Persian Gulf, was captured by the English fleet, 
assisted by a Persian army under Shah Abbas, the 
Portuguese population of over two thousand souls 
being transported to Muscat. The prize-money due 
to the Company from this conquest was estimated at 
.£100,000 and 240,000 rials of eight, of which James I. 
claimed £"10,000, his share as King, and the Duke 
of Buckingham ,£10,000, his share as Lord High 
Admiral, the Company not being permitted to send 
any ships from England until they consented to pay 
these amounts. 

A few years later, in 1629, the Emperor Shah 
Jahan captured the Portuguese settlement at Hugh', 
carried off some four thousand men, women, and 
children, slew over one thousand of the garrison, and 
took three hundred ships of the fleet. From all sides 
disaster soon followed. Goa was blockaded by the 
Dutch, who gradually gained entire control over the 

1 "Lendas da India," tr. by the Hon. E. J. Stanley ; Introduction, 
p.li. 



$6 RISE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. 

trade in the Spice Islands, Java, Ceylon, and on the 
mainland, leaving Portugal by the middle of the seven- 
teenth century stripped of her wealth and deprived 
of her commerce. 

As the trade in the East gradually fell from the 
hands of the effete and degenerate descendants of the 
early Portuguese adventurers the struggle commenced 
between the Dutch and English, each eager to seize 
this source of wealth, the true value of which was 
yearly becoming more apparent. In the nine voyages 
made by the Company up to 161 2, the average profit 
on each share held by the London merchants had 
been 171 per cent. From 161 3 to 1616 four voyages 
were made, the subscriptions being united as an in- 
vestment for the joint benefit of all the proprietors„ 
Owing to the opposition shown by the Dutch to the 
English trade in the Spice Islands the profits made 
on each of these four voyages fell to ,£89 10s. per 
share of £ 100. In spite of this the subscriptions 
increased to ;£ 1,600,000, subsequently expended in 
three voyages on a second joint stock account. 

In 1621 the subject of the Eastern trade excited so 
much controversy in England that Thomas Nun 
issued his celebrated tract as a counterblast to the 
growing contention that " it were a happier thing for 
Christendom (say many men) that the navigation of 
the East Indies, by way of the Cape of Good Hope, 
had never been found out." He pleaded that, as a 
result of the discovery of the route to India by the 
Cape, " the Kingdom is purged of desperate and 
unruly people who, kept in awe by the good discipline 
at sea, doe often change their former course of life 



THOMAS NUI^S TRACT. 37 

and so advance their fortunes." He then asserts that 
the new trade with the East " is a means to bring 
more treasure into the Realme than all the other 
trades of the Kingdome (as they are now managed) 
being put together." 

Respecting the ships which had been employed in 
;the Eastern seas he gave the following succinct infor- 
mation : " Since the beginning of the trade, until the 
month of July last, anno 1620, there have been sent 
thither 79 ships in several voyages, whereof 34 are 
alreadie come home in safetie richly laden, foure have 
been worne out by long service from port to port in 
the Indies, two were overwhelmed in the trimming 
thereof, six have been cast away by the perils of the 
Sea, twelve have been taken and surprized by the 
Dutch, whereof divers will be wasted and little worth 
before they be restored, and 21 good ships doe still 
remayne in the Indies." 

The profit made by the voyages is summed up as 
follows: " First there hath been lost £31,079 in the 
six shippes which are cast away, and in the 34 
shippes which are returned in safety there have been 
brought home £356,288 in divers sorts of wares which 
hath produced here in England towards the general 
stock thereof £1,914,000. ... So there ought to re- 
main in the Indies to be speedily returned hither 
£484,088." Elsewhere he shows in detail how 
pepper, mace, nutmegs, indigo, and raw silk, which 
would have cost £1,465,000 if purchased at the old 
rates, could now be purchased in the East Indies for 
about £511,458. 

The opposition of the Dutch to English enterprise 



38 RISE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. 

in the East yearly became more openly aggressive 
until finally, in 1623, the Massacre of Amboyna sowed 
the seeds of that bitter animosity which sprang up 
between the two nations, leading to a long series of 
conflicts for the supremacy of the seas. 

At Amboyna, in the Moluccas, Captain Towerson 
and his English factors, eighteen in number, occupied 
a house in the town, the Dutch holding a strong fort 
garrisoned by two hundred of their soldiers. Suddenly 
Captain Towerson and his assistants were seized on 
a charge of conspiring to surprise the Dutch strong- 
hold. It was in vain that the prisoners protested their 
innocence ; the torture of the rack, according to the 
barbarous custom of the day, was applied until they 
were forced, in their agony, to admit the truth of the 
accusation. Captain Towerson, nine English sailors, 
nine natives of Japan, and one Portuguese were be- 
headed, praying forgiveness from each other for having 
in their torment confessed to the false accusation. 
The indignation excited in England on receipt of 
news of this outrage was carefully heightened by the 
Directors of the East India Company who widely 
distributed a picture depicting, in all the exaggerated 
extravagance capable of being conjured up by the 
imagination of the time, the tortures inflicted on the 
English factors, coupled with the statement that the 
Dutch had sued the London Company for the ex- 
penses of a black pall wherewith the body of Captain 
Towerson had been covered. 

The oppressions of the Dutch, however, continued, 
the English trade gradually decreasing until by 
1628-9 the Company had incurred debts to the 



GABRIEL BOUGH TON. 39 

amount of ^"300,000, shares of ^"ioo falling down to 
£%Q>, although previously shares of £60 had been sold 
" by the candle " for as much as £130. 

To add to the depression permission was given, in 
1635, to a rival Company under Sir William Courten 
to trade with the East. In 1640 the King, as usual in 
grievous want of money, forced the old Company to 
sell him on credit all the pepper they had in store for 
the sum of ,£63,283 us. id., which the King imme- 
diately sold for ,£50,626 17s. id., ready cash ; it does 
not appear that the Company ever received any com- 
pensation, beyond some £"13,000 owing for Custom 
dues. 

The Company, driven by the Dutch from the 
Eastern Archipelago gradually commenced to estab- 
lish factories and settlements along the coast of India. 
In 1632 a factory was reopened at Masulipatam under 
an order known as the " Golden Firman," obtained 
from the Muhammadan King of Golconda. This 
settlement soon became the chief place of trade in 
India, its affairs being regulated by a Council. The 
Chief of the Council, Mr. Francis Day, made a visit to 
the Portuguese settlement at St. Thome, the supposed 
place of martyrdom of St. Thomas the Apostle, and 
founded there in 1640 a new factory and centre of 
trade known as Madras town. A more important 
concession was obtained in 1636 by Mr. Gabriel 
Boughton, surgeon of the Hopewell. He was sum- 
moned to attend the Emperor's daughter who, through 
her clothes catching fire, had been badly burned. De- 
lighted with the rapid recovery of his daughter, under 
the hands of the skilful English surgeon, the Emperor 



40 EISE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. 

Shah Jahan, at Mr. Boughton's request, granted the 
Company permission to establish a factory at Hugh' and 
to make a settlement lower down the coast at Balasor 
where a fort was built which soon became the strong- 
est position held by the Company on the east coast. 

Bombay, given by the Portuguese to Charles II. 
on his marriage with Catherine of Braganza, as part 
of her dower, was leased by the King in 1669 to the 
Company on a rent of ,£10 per annum — a possession 
which from 1685 grew to be the chief port of trade on 
the west coast. 

While the London merchants were thus establish- 
ing centres of trade abroad, efforts were being made 
by the home Government to undermine the growing 
enterprise of the Dutch who, in 1622-3, had founded 
New Amsterdam, now New York, in America, and in 
1650 commenced the colonisation of the Cape of 
Good Hope. By the Navigation Act, passed in 165 1, 
Cromwell not only prepared the way for the future 
extension of English shipping and commerce, but 
struck a decisive blow at the prosperity of the Dutch, 
then the carriers of the world's sea-borne trade. By 
this Act no goods from the East, from Africa or from 
America, were allowed to be imported into Great 
Britain unless carried in ships belonging to England 
and her colonies. 

In the war which ensued the Dutch had much to 
lose ; attacks could be made on their rich merchant 
ships and their supplies cut off. England, on the 
other hand, had but little carrying trade to defend 
and was secure in her own agricultural resources. The 
Dutch flee', under Martin Tromp, was defeated by 



DUTCH AND FRENCH. 4 1 

Blake off Dover in 1652 — a defeat retrieved by the 
end of the year when Tromp won a decisive victory, 
afterwards sailing down the Channel with a broom 
flying at his masthead to show that he had swept 
the English from the seas. In March, 1653, Blake 
and Monk defeated Tromp and De Ruyter in the three 
days' fight off Beachy Head. In August Tromp was 
killed in the engagement off the Texel peace being 
afterwards concluded between the rival powers, neither 
able to gain much advantage by continuing the 
conflict. 

France was now commencing her struggle for 
participation in the commerce of the world. As 
early as 1604 French companies had been formed 
and ships sent out to the East, but no serious efforts 
had been made to interfere with the Dutch and 
English. It was not until the year 1664 that Colbert, 
successor to the great finance Minister Mazarin, suc- 
ceeded in arousing the interest of Louis XIV. in 
a scheme for enriching France by a fostering of her 
resources and development of her commerce. The 
exclusive right of trading to the East was granted 
to a powerful Company, formed with a capital of 
fifteen million francs, while as a basis for naval 
operations in the narrow seas, Louis XIV., in 1662, 
purchased from Charles II. the fortress of Dunkirk 
taken by England in 1658 from the Spanish Nether- 
lands. 

In 1664 France laid claim to the whole of the 
Spanish Netherlands— a claim which, if enforced, 
would have enabled her to open up the Scheldt to 
navigation and divert the commerce from the Dutch 



42 RISE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. 

at Amsterdam to Antwerp, whence the trade had 
drifted after its sack in 1576 by the Spaniards. The 
whole history of the next fifty years centres round 
this policy of Louis XIV., which by its failure left 
the trade to the East and the supremacy of the seas 
in the undisputed possession of England. 

At first France met with a short but brilliant suc- 
cess, typical of all her subsequent enterprises to gain 
an Eastern Empire. Colbert fixed on an adventurer, 
Francois Caron, formerly cook and chief steward on a 
Dutch man-of-war, who by his erratic versatility had 
risen to be Member of Council of the Dutch settle- 
ment at Batavia, to inaugurate the new policy, and 
despatched him to India, in 1667, as Director-General 
of French commerce. Caron succeeded in establish- 
ing factories at Surat and Masulipatam, earning for 
himself the order of St. Michel from Louis XIV. as 
a reward for the rich cargoes he sent home. Em- 
boldened by his success he seized the Dutch settle- 
ment at Trinkamali in Ceylon, and took St. Thome 
from the Portuguese, only to find his adventurous 
career cut short by his recall on the news reaching 
Colbert that the Dutch had recaptured Trinkamali 
and ignominiously driven the French out of Ceylon. 
Caron, on his way home, heard that his failure had 
sealed his fate ; in endeavouring to escape, the ship in 
which he sailed foundered and he was drowned, thus 
escaping the ignominious fate of his successors La 
Bourdonnais and Dupleix who strove with all the 
power of their imaginative genius to accomplish a 
task foredoomed to failure — the foundation of French 
supremacy in India. It was not in the East but in 



WAR WITH HOLLAND. 43 

Europe that the real struggle took place between the 
Western nations for maritime supremacy on which 
command over the destinies of India could alone be 
based. 

In England the policy of weakening the commercial 
prosperity of the Dutch continued incessantly with a 
fixedness of purpose which seemed inevitably to work 
towards its result, success. Charles II. continued the 
commercial policy of Cromwell, enacting by his Navi- 
gation Act, which ruled the importation of goods into 
England down to 1 849, that no goods of Turkey or 
Russia should be carried into England unless borne 
by British ships, while a long list of scheduled goods 
were absolutely forbidden, under any conditions, to 
be imported from Germany, Holland, or the Nether- 
lands. 

The commercial rivalries soon led to open hostilities, 
culminating, early in 1665, in a declaration of war 
between England and Holland. The English fleet 
beat the Dutch off Lowestoft, only to meet with a 
disastrous reverse in the famous four days' fight off 
Dover — a reverse retrieved by the defeat of the 
Dutch off the North Forelands and the burning of the 
Dutch ships in their harbours. Content with this suc- 
cess Charles II. neglected his navy, allowing many of 
his best ships to be paid off. The day of awakening, 
however, came when De Ruyter appeared at Graves- 
end and in the Medway, burned the English ships at 
Chatham and seized Sheerness. 

The Plague and the Great Fire had already broken 
the spirit of the English nation ; the fires from the 
burning ships in the river completed the disasters. 



44 KISE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. 

Peace was restored by the Treaty of Breda in 1667, 
England gaining New York and New Jersey, the 
Dutch once more consenting to salute the English 
flag on the high seas. 

Holland too was glad to be at peace. Not only was 
her maritime power threatened but her very existence 
as a nation was at stake. Louis XIV. had finally 
rejected the statesmanlike policy of Colbert — a policy 
pressed on him by Leibnitz who, with prophetic 
insight, pointed out how the trade from the East 
would be held by the nation wise enough to com- 
mand the immediate and ancient route by way of 
the Persian Gulf and Red Sea — a route England 
is obliged to hold to-day in order to safeguard her 
own commercial supremacy. " The possession of 
Egypt," wrote Leibnitz, " opens the way to con- 
quests worthy of Alexander ; the extreme weakness 
of the Orientals is no longer a secret. Whoever has 
Egypt will have all the coasts and islands of the 
Indian Ocean. It is in Egypt that Holland will be 
conquered ; it is there she will be despoiled of what 
alone renders her prosperous, the Treasures of the 
East." 

Louis XIV. thought otherwise. He longed for the 
territorial expansion of his dominions in Europe. He 
seized Franche Comte and parts — now Belgium — of 
the Spanish Netherlands. In 1670 he induced Charles 
II. to enter into the Secret Treaty of Dover so that 
both nations might unite to crush Holland, whose 
people were detested by the English King, and whose 
commercial prosperity he would gladly see destroyed. 
The Dutch, under De Ruyter, showed in Southwold 



WAR WITH FRANCE. 45 

Bay that they could successfully resist the allied 
fleets, while on land William of Orange, afterwards 
William III. of England, accepted as Stadholder on 
the murder of the De Witt brothers at the Hague 
in 1672, successfully held Amsterdam by cutting the 
dykes and inundating South Holland. Louis had to 
retire baffled. In the next year Charles II., after the 
brilliant though indecisive attack made off the Texel 
by the Dutch fleet under Prince Rupert, was forced 
to make peace and withdraw his alliance from the 
French. 

Holland, in her efforts to preserve her independence, 
had been obliged to neglect her Eastern possessions 
and turn her attention from the increase of her navy 
and shipping to the strengthening of her army and 
land defences, while at the same time she was gradu- 
ally becoming more and more involved in debt. 

By the Treaty of Augsburg, in 1686, Holland had 
to join Sweden and Savoy in again opposing the over- 
weening ambition of Louis XIV. — an alliance joined 
by England in 1689, the year after William of Orange 
had landed at Torbay, driven out James II. and 
accepted the throne in hopes of seeing his lifelong 
ambition crowned by the crushing of his great rival, 
the French monarch. At Beachy Head Admiral 
Tourville succeeded in defeating the combined 
Dutch and English fleets in 1690, but two years later 
the crowning victory of Admiral Russell off Cape La 
Hogue again established the naval supremacy of 
England. By the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, Louis 
XIV. was forced to surrender all his conquests in the 
Netherlands and beyond the Rhine, receiving back 



46 RISE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY-. 

the French settlement at Pondicherry on the east 
coast of India which had been captured by the Dutch. 

Although England was thus gradually freed from 
all fear of Holland as a commercial rival in the 
East, France still struggled for mastery. Louis 
XIV., aiming at universal dominion, sought, in 1700, 
on the death of Charles II., the Spanish King, 
whose sister he had married, to unite in his own 
person the thrones of France and Spain. Against 
his pretensions Holland, Austria, and England com- 
bined. The French fleet was defeated in Vigo Bay ; 
Gibraltar was taken by Rorke ; the victories of 
Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet 
followed, leaving Louis humbled and helpless, glad 
in 171 3 to sign the Peace of Utrecht, by which the 
defences of Dunkirk were to be razed to the ground, 
Nova Scotia and Newfoundland ceded to England, 
and Holland, now no longer a naval power to be 
feared, left in safe possession of her Spanish Nether- 
lands. 

England remained the supreme maritime power to 
pursue her career and gain, without chance of failure, 
the monopoly of the commerce of the East. Holland 
was crippled ; the subsequent efforts made by France 
are merely interesting as historical facts, for without a 
command of the seas she was powerless to compete 
with England in the East. In India itself the Com- 
pany had but little to fear. The Mughal Empire was 
falling to pieces, the people separated from each other 
by differences of race, religion, language, customs, and 
local tradition, lacked the essential elements where- 
with to combine in a national sentiment of opposition 






THE UNITED COMPANY. 



47 



to the invasion of a foreign power whose resources 
and strength were secured on the seas. 

In 1693 the Old English Company had lost its 
Charter, notwithstanding the fact that it had ex- 
pended ^90,000 in efforts to bribe the Privy Council, 
for a new Company, known as the London Company, 
had lent the Government two millions sterling at 8 per 
cent., and in return had been granted the exclusive 
right of trading to the East. In 1702 a compro- 
mise was effected by the exertions of Godolphin, 
the two Companies being amalgamated under the 
title of the United Company of Merchants trading 
to the East Indies — a Company better known as "The 
Honourable East India Company," under whose rule 
the British Empire was established in India and 
maintained down to the Mutiny when the Crown 
assumed direct control. 




III. 



INDIA ON THE EVE OF CONQUEST. 



In India the reign of Aurangzib the Great Mughal 
had come to a close in 1707, the dying Emperor in 
his last hours pouring forth his lamentations over the 
ruin overshadowing the empire founded by his fore- 
fathers. " I have not done well by the country or 
its people," he cried, in despair, " the army is con- 
founded, and without heart or help even as I am." 

Into India the Mughal Emperors had come as 
foreigners. Two hundred years before the death 
of Aurangzib, at the time when Dom Francisco de 
Almeida, the first Portuguese Viceroy, reached India 
with twenty-two ships and 1,500 soldiers, Babar the 
Lion, the Chagatai Tartar, sixth in descent from Timur 
or Tamerlane at the head of his northern barbarians 
had descended through the passes of Afghanistan 
to found the Mughal Empire. Through the same 
passes from time immemorial warlike races had swept 
down on the sun-steeped plains of the Five Rivers 
and rich alluvial tracts of the Ganges and Jumna 

to conquer the effete dwellers therein and subdue 

48 



EARLY INVASIONS. 49 

them to their will. In India history repeats itself 
with monotonous sameness. In its enervating plains, 
far removed from the invigorating sea-breeze and the 
bracing cold of the mountain ranges, the keen eye, 
undaunted heart, and relentless arm of the successive 
hardy northern immigrants slowly but surely tend to 
change to the placid look, folded hands and brooding 
mind of the Eastern Sage, who, content to dream 
his dream of life, wearily turns from the conflict and 
dire struggle for existence, time after time introduced 
by the more warlike northern conquerors ever coming 
and going like the monsoon storms. 

Who the first inhabitants of India were we know 
not. In primeval days, wild, savage people inhabited 
the land, wandering to and fro along the riversides 
in search of food. The only records they have left 
of their existence are the chipped flint or quartzite 
arrow-heads, scrapers, and axes, dug up to-day in the 
alluvial deposits of the great river valleys. By 
degrees these aboriginal inhabitants became more 
civilised. They learned to smooth and polish their 
rude stone implements, perforating them with holes 
so as to attach them to handles. As time went on 
they made gold and silver ornaments, and manu- 
factured earthen pots, which are still discovered in 
the strange tombs, constructed of upright stone slabs, 
wherein they buried their dead. 

From their homes in the river valleys, lowlands 
and open country, these primeval people of India 
were gradually driven by other invading races to the 
lofty mountain ranges, where, amid the dense forests, 
their descendants still live undisturbed, retaining all 

5 



50 INDIA ON THE EVE OF CONQUEST. 

their primitive simplicity, superstitions, beliefs, and 
habits. During the taking of the Census of 1872 
it was ascertained that one-twelfth of the population 
of India, nearly twenty millions of human beings, 
consisted of these living fossils of primeval times. 
There they remain, a strange study to the historian 
and anthropologist : worshippers of spirits, ghosts 
and demons ; worshippers of snakes, trees, mountains, 
streams, and aught that inspires wonder, fear, or 
terror, but little affected by the efforts of their British 
rulers to inculcate the most primary elements of 
civilisation, except in so far as their grosser habits of 
human sacrifice, infanticide, and intertribal war and 
bloodshed have been sternly suppressed. 

Respecting the earliest invasions of India there 
exists but the vaguest and most unreliable evidence. 

The whole south of India is at present inhabited 
by a people speaking cognate languages which have 
been grouped together and called Dravidian. Inas- 
much as these languages show strong affinities with 
northern languages such as the Biluchi, the Ugrian 
of Siberia, the Finnish, and that used in the Behistun 
inscriptions of Media, it has been conjectured that 
the people of the south entered India from the north- 
west, and were gradually driven to their present 
habitat by stronger and more recent invaders. On 
the other hand, it has been contended that the 
Dravidians of South India are the sole surviving 
remnant of a great race originally inhabiting a wide 
continent now submerged, but once stretching from 
India to Madagascar, Africa, and Melanesia. Another 
race, designated as the Kolarian, is presumed, on even 



THE ARYANS. 5 I 

weaker evidence, to have entered India from the 
north-east and, checked in its conquering career by 
the Dravidians, to have been driven back to its present 
home in the north and north-east of the Deccan. 

Again, along the lower slopes of the Himalayas 
we find a people giving clear evidences of their descent 
from some early Chinese or Mongolian immigrants. 

The first invading race whose history we can trace 
with something approaching to accuracy was the 
Aryan, who entered India probably about the time 
of Abraham, some two thousand years before the 
Christian era. 

The language of these invaders was the ancient 
Sanskrit, from which, through two early vernaculars 
the Sauraseni and Magadhi, all the modern languages 
of North India are descended. It belongs to the 
same family as the Greek, Slavo-Lettic, Teutonic, 
Celtic, and Latin of the West. From this fact it has 
been contended that all these languages must have 
sprung from some original common parent language 
spoken by an united Aryan people once living to- 
gether in some common home. So far the evidence 
seems unassailable ; still the question as to where was 
the Early Home of the Aryans remains unanswered. 
Professor Max M tiller holds that it was somewhere 
in Asia ; Dr. Schrader says that it was in European 
Russia ; Herr Penka sees grounds for believing that 
it was somewhere in Scandinavia ; while Mr. Huxley 
asserts that it was in Europe, somewhere east of the 
Central Highlands and west of the Ural range of 
mountains. 

Wherever the Aryans came from it is certain that 



52 INDIA ON THE EVE OF CONQUEST. 

they invaded India as foreigners, possessing all the 
rude vigour and determination to succeed in the 
struggle for life characteristic of dwellers in cool and 
northern climes. They found India inhabited by the 
descendants of the aboriginal races and later invaders 
on whom they looked down with haughty contempt. 
In their Vedic hymns, which they sang to their Divine 
Beings, the Devas, or Bright Ones, they have left the 
record of their wars, their victories, hopes, and aspira- 
tions. To their god Indra, the Indian Zeus, they 
sang their song of praise, for he it was who " flays 
the enemy of his black skin, he kills him, he reduces 
him to ashes." 

Wearing armour and helmets, with horses and 
chariots, armed with bows and arrows, swords and 
battle-axes, drinking their intoxicating Soma juice, 
and eating the flesh of buffaloes, bulls and cows, they 
drove before them their enemies whom they describe 
as scarcely human, black, no-nosed, godless, infidel, 
and eaters of raw flesh. They gradually conquered 
the land of the Five Rivers — the Indus, Jehlam, 
Chenab, Ravi, and Sutlej, advancing by the sixth 
century B.C. as far as the upper reaches of the Ganges 
and Jumna. In the holy land of Brahmavarta, lying 
between the Sarasvati and Drishadvati, the singers 
of the Vedic hymns, the priests, or Brahmans, as they 
came to be called, founded their chief schools of 
learning, whence to the south, and north, and further 
east, they spread the civilising influence of their high 
culture and moral force of character. In the days 
of the Lawgiver Manu it was held of Brahmavarta 
" that by a Brahman who has been born in that land 



Aryan conquests. 53 

shall all men on earth be instructed as to their cha- 
racter." To-day in every Hindu village of India the 
cultured Brahman will be found to move supreme, 
his learning to be honoured, the high ideas of morality 
he inculcates respected, his deep ponderings over the 
mystery of creation, the soul and Divine Essence 
revered and studied. From the earliest times these 
reciters of the Vedic hymns, who grew to be 
family priests or Brahmans, offerers of the burned 
offerings to their deities, were held to be the first 
among men, the very mouthpiece of the gods, created 
by a special creation from the head of the Creator. 
Kings and warriors were but sprung from the arms 
of the Creator to conquer the unbelievers and subdue 
them to the will of the priestly legislators. The black 
aboriginal races were all sprung from the feet of the 
Creator for servile labour. Gradually the divisions of 
the people according to colour, race, occupation, or 
religion extended itself until each caste, or class, 
became rigidly separated from the other, its traditions 
and customs stereotyped for ever by the priestly 
ordinances enunciated, and believed in as though 
they were revealed to the Brahmans from before all 
time. Even death itself could put no end to these 
caste distinctions between race and race, between 
occupation and occupation, between one religious 
sect and another. Let but the individual overstep 
the narrow limits allotted for his course of life and 
duty in this world, his soul or undying part would, 
after having reaped its punishment as awarded by the 
gods, return to earth to be reborn, sometimes in a 
man of a lower grade of society, sometimes as an 



54 INDIA ON THE EVE OF CONQUEST. 

animal, or in case its transgressions were great, as 
a creeping or crawling insect, or as an evil spirit ever 
to roam without rest. 

The Aryans in their ancestral homes had wor- 
shipped the expanse of the heavens, the rosy-fingered 
Dawn, the Sun, the God of the Storms, and the 
good God the Giver of Fire to Mortals ; but in their 
new homes in the East they, for the first time, fully 
realised the exceeding might and majesty of Nature 
in all her varied manifestations. Slowly along with 
the growth of a belief that man was possessed of a 
Soul, an immortal undying principle within himself, 
grew the knowledge that behind all the phenomena 
of Nature lay the unchanging, omnipotent, and om- 
niscient principle, the eternal essence, Brahman, ever 
manifesting itself in different places, times, and forms. 
Unfortunately the rude superstitions, savage customs, 
and primitive beliefs of the aboriginal inhabitants and 
despised servile classes were tolerated and accepted 
to a certain extent by a large portion of their more 
civilised conquerors. The influence of the teaching 
of Buddha, from the sixth century B.C. onward, made 
but small impression on the great mass of the people, 
for not only did he and his followers live apart from 
the general community, seeking out their own salva- 
tion by avowed renunciation of the world, but the 
subsequent worship of their relics and images spread 
far and wide an idolatry which in more or less 
debasing forms gradually enslaved the religious 
sentiments of the uneducated Hindus. 

The seventh century of our era saw a strange 
change come when the devastating wave of Muham- 



THE MUHAMMADANS. 



55 



madan invasions commenced to sweep over North 
India. These new invaders, vowed by their creed to 
root out idolatry in the lands which they conquered, 
and to subdue disbelievers in the One True God and 
Muhammad as the Prophet of that God, not only 
desolated the land, but broke in pieces the Hindu 
idols, razed to the ground the magnificent temples 




MUHAMMADANS PRAYING. 



of North India, and slew, in their fanatic zeal, the 
Brahman priests and Buddhist monks. Raid after 
raid, invasion after invasion, took place. Mahmud 
of Ghazni, after twenty-five years' fighting and seven- 
teen incursions, succeeded, in the year 1030, in 
subduing the western districts of the Punjab. The 
story is told how he was offered an enormous ransom 



$6 INDIA ON THE EVE OP CONQUEST. 

if he would spare the sacred idol in the holy temple 
of Somnath. He scornfully replied that he was a 
breaker and not a seller of idols, and, cleaving the 
image asunder, was astonished to see pour out at 
his feet a vast store of jewels which had been con- 
cealed there by the priests. From the temple he 
carried back to Afghanistan the sandal-wood gates 
which Lord Ellenborough fondly, though erroneously, 
imagined he recovered and restored to the Hindus 
after the Afghanistan War in 1842. 

The first Muhammadan Emperor who firmly 
established his sway in India was Kutab ud dm, a 
Turki slave. He raised himself to power about 1206, 
and his own historian records that in his days "the 
realm was filled with friends and cleared of foes ; his 
bounty was continuous and so was his slaughter." 
More terrible were the woes and sufferings of the 
people under the Emperor Muhammad Tughlak, 
who ruled from the year 1325 to 135 1. With 
fiendish cruelty, akin to the animal lust of a man-, 
eating tiger, his fierce nature could only be appeased 
by deeds of inhuman wickedness. Enclosing large 
tracts of country he drove the inoffensive inhabitants 
towards the centre so that he and his favourite com- 
rades might revel in man-hunts, slaughtering human 
beings as though they were wild beasts. His nephew 
who rebelled against him, was flayed alive, and no 
one in the kingdom dared afterwards to dispute his 
dictates. 

These terrors were but a prelude to the storm 
which burst over the land in 1398, when Timur, or 
Tamerlane, collected together all the wild roving 



THE MUG HALS. 57 

bands of Tartary, and swept down through the north- 
west passes of Afghanistan across the Punjab towards 
Delhi. The imperial city surrendered under a promise 
of safety, only to be given up to the flames and 
pillaged by the fierce horsemen who slew the inhabi- 
tants so that the streets were rendered impassable for 
the space of six days. Tamerlane and his savage 
soldiery retreated laden with the hoarded-up wealth 
of centuries, leaving naught behind them but the 
ruins and ashes of burned cities and the wailing of 
the desolate inhabitants. 

After his departure India was for a time left in 
peace. Muhammadan Emperors were enthroned at 
Delhi while local chieftains held independent sway in 
the more distant provinces. 

At length, in 1526, Babar the Lion marched down 
at the head of his hardy northern horsemen from the 
Afghanistan side of the mountains and established 
the rule of the Mughals. 

Nothing illustrates more forcibly the fact that the 
Mughals, as well as their successors, were foreigners 
in the land of India than the words in which Babar 
records his first impressions on seeing the sunlit 
plains of India. ■■■" I had never before seen countries of 
warm temperature," he wrote, "nor the country of 
Hindustan. Immediately on reaching them I beheld 
a new world : the grass was different, the trees dif- 
ferent, the wild animals of a different sort, the birds 
of a different plumage. • The manners and customs 
of the wandering tribes of a different kind. I was 
struck with astonishment, and indeed there was room 
for wonder." 



5& INDIA ON THE EVE OP CONQUEST. 

Again he writes in the same Memoirs : " Hindustan 
has but little to recommend it. The inhabitants are 
not good-looking, they have no idea of the pleasures 
of society, they have no genius or generalising talent, 
neither polish of manner, amiability or sympathetic 
feeling, neither ingenuity or mechanical invention, 
nor knowledge or skill in architecture, they have no 
decent houses, good fruit, ice or cold water, they have 
neither baths nor colleges, neither candles nor candle- 
sticks ; if you want to read or write by night you 
must have a filthy, half-naked fellow standing over 
you all the time with a glaring torch." 

Under the early Mughal Emperors the whole of 
India north of the Vindhya range of mountains was 
united into one great empire, its cities adorned with 
stately palaces, tombs, temples, and mosques, ranging 
from the Mausoleum of Humayun, with its tall 
Persian dome and glazed tiles, on to Akbar's palace 
and fort at Agra, his fairy buildings and imposing 
mosque at Fatehpur Sikri, his own tomb, the most 
stately and graceful ever designed and erected by any 
monarch of the East, down to the gorgeous buildings 
such as the Taj Mahal, the fort, palaces, and Great 
Mosque at Delhi, and many others which the luxu- 
rious taste of Shah Jahan revelled in seeing grow up 
around him. 

The long and beneficent reign (1556 to 1605), of 
Akbar, an enlightened monarch whose fame rivals 
that of Louis XIV. and Elizabeth, saw not only the 
consolidation of the empire in the north, but also 
witnessed the gradual decay of the Portuguese settle- 
ments, and ended with the advent of the Dutch and 



MUGHAL EMPERORS. 



59 



English merchants. Jahangir succeeded his father 
Akbar to an empire extending over Kandahar and 
Kashmir in the north, over Malwa, Gujarat, and 
Sind in the west, to Orissa and Bengal in the east. 

Sir Thomas Roe, ambassador from King James I. 
to the Court of Jahangir, gives in his well-known 
letters a full and fairly accurate account of the 
country and social life at this period. On all sides 
the English ambassador discerned signs of coming 
changes. " Beware," he wrote to the Company — 
"beware of scattering your goods 
in divers parts and engaging your 
stocke and servants farre into 
the country, for the time will 
come when all in these king- 
domes will be in combustion, 
and a few yeares warre will not 
decide the inveterate malice laid 
up on all parts against a day of 
vengeance." 

At his first interview the am- 
bassador presented Jahangir with 
some presents, and unfortunately, 

also, with a case of wine, whereon Jahangir immediately 
got so drunk that business had to be suspended. 
" In fact," as Sir Thomas Roe writes, " there is nothing 
more welcome here, nor did I ever see men so fond of 
drink as the King and Prince are of red wine. . . . 
I think 4 or 5 casks will be more welcome than the 
richest gems in Cheapside." 

Although Jahangir indulged in nightly debauches 
with his nobles a strict silence was ever supposed to 




AKBAR. 



(From H olden' s " Mogul 
Emperors.") 



6.0 INDIA ON THE EVE OF CONQUEST, 

reign in Court circles on the subject. The Emperor 
once being reminded by an incautious companion 
of a previous night's saturnalia, expressed extreme 
astonishment and made diligent inquiries respecting 
those who were present, " fined some one, some two, 
some three thousand rupies, some lesse, and some that 
were neerer his person he caused to be whipped before 
him, receiving one hundred and thirtie stripes with a 
most terrible instruement, having at each end of foure 
cords, irons like Spurrowels, so that each stroke 
made foure wounds. When they lay for dead on the 
ground, he commanded the standers by to foot them, 
and after, the Porters to breake their staves upon 
them. Thus most cruelly mangled and bruised they 
were carried out, of which one dyed in the place." 

Although Sir Thomas Roe was, like most Eng- 
lishmen, entirely out of sympathy with his Eastern 
surroundings and the modes of thought of the people 
with whom he came in contact, still his remarks are 
of historical value, as being those of a cultured man 
of shrewd, common sense, whose imagination never 
led him into excesses of extravagant praise or 
vulgar abuse. His remarks may therefore be taken 
as giving an accurate though somewhat prosaic de- 
scription of the outward conditions of social life in 
India at the time he wrote. In one of his letters, 
dated from Ajmere, on January 27, 161 5, he says: 
" The buildings are all base, of mudde, one story 
high, except in Surat, where are some stone houses, 
but I know not by what policie the King seekes 
the ruine of all the ancient Cities which were bravely 
built and now lye desolate and ruined. His owne 



SIR THOMAS ROE. 6 1 

houses are of stone, both in good forme and faire, but 
his great men build not, for want of inheritance, but 
as farre as I have yet seene live in Tents, or houses 
worse then a cottager ; yet where the King affects, as 
at Agra, because it is a city erected by him, the 
Buildings are (as is reported) faire and of carved 
stone." Marching with the Emperor's retinue near 
Godah, which is described as a land fruitful in corn, 
cotton and cattle, he incidentally mentions that in 
the fields by the roadside he saw the bodies of one 
hundred naked men who had been slain for a crime 
then very common — highway robbery. Further on 
he passed an embassy carrying as a gift to the 
Emperor the heads of three hundred rebels who had 
been put to death in Kandahar. Godah he describes 
as the best town he had seen in India, " for that there 
were some houses two stories high, and such as a 
Pedler might not scorne to keepe shop in, all covered 
with tyle." 

Sir Thomas Roe, having wasted much time in 
fruitless endeavours to induce the Emperor to sign 
a treaty granting trading privileges to the Company 
in perpetuity, wrote home that in his opinion it was 
inadvisable to seek to acquire land in India, or even 
to erect forts along the sea coast, " by my consent 
you shall no way ingage yourselves but at sea where 
you are like to gaine as often as to lose. ... It is the 
beggering of the Portugall, notwithstanding his many 
rich residences and territories, that he keepes souldiers 
that spend it : yet his garrisons are meane. He 
never profited by the Indies, since he defended them- 
Observe this well." 



62 INDIA ON THE EVE OF CONQUEST. 

Finally the ambassador beseeches that never again 
should a gentleman of his rank be sent on an 
embassy to the Mughal Court : " A meaner agent 
would among these proud Moors better effect your 
business. My quality often for ceremonies either 
begets you enemies or suffers unworthily. ... I have 
moderated according to my discretion but with a 
swoln heart." 

It was not long before Sir Thomas Roe's fore- 
bodings as to the future perils and troubles which 
lay in store for the empire proved true. When, in 
1658, the Emperor Shah Jahan, who had succeeded 
his father Jahangfr in 1627, was reported to be dying, 
his four sons broke into open rebellion, declaring that 
the sword alone should determine the right of suc- 
cession. The city of Agra was panic-stricken, the 
inhabitants closed their shops and waited the issue in 
fear and trembling. At length Aurangzib, the third 
son of the sick Emperor, who had diligently acquired 
the reputation of being a devout Muhammadan, 
Puritan, ascetic, and saintly in all his habits, defeated 
his brothers, two of whom, Dara and Murad-Bakhsh, 
he put to death, the third, Shuja, escaping to be 
never heard of more. Shah Jahan was placed in 
captivity, where for six long years he mourned his 
sad fate and that of his murdered sons. 

Aurangzib succeeded to the great Mughal Empire, 
then possessing an army of three hundred thousand 
horse and four hundred thousand foot, and a yearly 
income of nearly ninety millions sterling. Before he 
became Emperor he had subdued three of the five 
great independent kingdoms of the south, and before 



THE MARATHAS. 63 

him still remained unaccomplished the task of uniting 
to the empire the two more southern kingdoms of 
Golconda and Bijapur, then held by representatives 
of the Kutab Shahf and Adil Shahi dynasties. For 
twenty years he wasted his resources in endeavouring 
to conquer these kingdoms, and when at length they 
fell he was obliged to remain at the head of his troops 
for twenty years longer endeavouring to keep order 
in his unwieldy dominions, and drive back his ever- 
increasing foes. 

With the Rajput princes of Rajputana, whom he 
had alienated from the throne by his religious intole- 
rance, he was obliged to make treaties of peace ; with 
the Sikhs in the Punjab, whom his persecutions had 
changed from a religious sect into a nation of fierce 
soldiers, sworn to die fighting in defence of their 
faith, he waged a war of extermination, torturing 
and slaying their captive leaders with fiendish cruel- 
ties ; while the Marathas, who under Sivaji had risen 
to power in the Deccan, harassed his armies, cut off 
his supplies, and forced him to yield them chauth, 
or one-fourth of the revenue which they claimed a 
right to levy by force of arms from all the kingdoms 
of the south. In 1664 Sivaji, at the head of his 
horsemen pillaged and burned Surat as far as the 
English factory, which was only saved from the 
flames by the heroic defence of the Governor, Sir 
George Oxindon. 

From the letters of the courtly French physician 
Dr. Francois Bernier, who travelled through North 
India from 1656 to 1668, it is easy to see how the 
distress of the people was daily increasing, and the 



64 INDIA ON THE EVE OF CONQUEST. 

power of the Emperor to preserve peace and order 
over his extended dominions was passing away, so 
that it needed but a firm hand to wrest the sceptre 
from out the feeble hold of the effete descendants of 
Babar. The keynote to the situation is to be found 
in the remark of Bernier : " The Great Mogol is a 
foreigner in Hindustan, a descendant of Tamerlane, 
chief of those Mogols from Tartary who, about the 
year 1401, overran and conquered the Indies. Con- 
sequently he finds himself in a hostile country con- 
taining hundreds of Gentiles to one Mogol, or even 
to one Mahometan.'' 

As a matter of fact it was ascertained by the 
Census of 1891 that while the population of India 
amounts to 287,223,431, but 57,321,164 were classified 
as Muhammadan, of whom it would be difficult to 
say how many are merely converted Hindus. It 
must be remembered, too, that the inevitable law of 
India, with its enervating climate, is that the land 
can never be long held or firmly governed by a race 
which does not periodically renew its strength and 
manhood by fresh recruits drawn from northern or 
temperate climes. 

Thus Bernier wrote : " It should be added, how- 
ever, that children of the third and fourth generation, 
who have the brown complexion and languid manner 
of this country of their nativity, are held in much less 
respect than new-comers, and are seldom invested 
with official situation." 

Equally important is the observation, with regard 
to the early European settlers, made by John Fryer, 
a surgeon to the Company, who travelled in India 



FRANCOIS BERNIER, 65 

during this period, " the Company have sent out 
English women, but they beget a sickly generation, 
and as the Dutch well observe those thrive best that 
come of an European Father and Indian mother." 

The whole history of the period is summed up by 
Sir W. Wilson Hunter as follows : " The ancestors of 
Aurangzib, who swooped down on India from the 
North, were ruddy men in boots ; the courtiers among 
whom Aurangzib grew up were pale persons in petti- 
coats. Babar, the founder of the empire, had swum 
every river which he met with during thirty years' 
campaigning : the luxurious nobles around the 
youthful Aurangzib wore skirts made of innumerable 
folds of finest white muslins, and went to war in 
palanquins." 

That the people themselves could suffer but little 
from a change of their effete rulers may be seen from 
the description given by Bernier and other travellers 
in India of the general insecurity of life and property. 
" No adequate description can be conveyed," wrote 
Bernier, " of the sufferings of the people. The cudgel 
and the whip compel them to incessant labour for the 
benefit of others ; and, driven to despair by every 
kind of cruel treatment, their revolt or their flight is 
only prevented by the presence of a military force." 
Again he remarks : " As the ground is seldom tilled 
otherwise than by compulsion, and as no person 
is found willing and able to repair the ditches and 
canals for the conveyance of water, it happens that the 
whole country is badly cultivated." More sweeping 
is his statement, " It is owing to this miserable system 
of government that most towns in Hindustan are 



66 INDIA ON THE EVE OF CONQUEST. 

made up of earth, mud, and other wretched materials ; 
that there is no city or town which, if it be not already 
ruined and deserted, does not bear evident marks of 
approaching decay." 

Another French traveller, Tavernier, who made 
voyages to India from 1640 to 1667 says : " You may 
see in India whole provinces like deserts from whence 
the peasants have fled on account of the oppression 
of the Governors. Under cover of the fact that they 
are themselves Muhammadans they prosecute (?) 
these poor idolaters to the utmost, and if any of" the 
latter become Muhammadans it is in order not to 
work any more ; they become soldiers or Fakirs 
who are people who make a profession of having 
renounced the world and live upon alms, but in 
reality they are all great rascals." 

Dr. Fryer in his letters gives even a more dismal 
account of the people, who he says are " drudges 
to their Masters and Prince, who here as in all 
India is sole Proprietor of lands ; allowing the oc- 
cupiers no more than a bare subsistence, and not 
that when a bad year fills not the Publick granaries ; 
drubbing the poor Hindus till their bones rattle in 
their skins, they being forced often to sell their 
children for rice." 

Even the Brahman priests suffered at the hands of 
those of their own faith, the Marathas, who, says Dr. 
Fryer, " have now in limbo several Brachmins, whose 
flesh they tear with pincers heated red hot, drub them 
on the shoulders to extreme anguish, though accord- 
ing to their law it is forbidden to strike a Brachmin." 

More important still is the account given by 



WEAKNESS OF ORIENTALS. 6j 

Bernier of the essential weakness of Oriental troops 
so soon to be pitted against armies disciplined and 
held together by English officers. This weakness 
was not only the very basis of the policy of Dupleix 
and Clive, it not only rendered the conquests of 
the English inevitable and certain so long as they 
could pursue their course free from European rivalry, 
but further it is the basis, at least the material 
basis, on which the stability of the British rule in 
India is to-day firmly established free from all fear 
of internal attack. " I could never see," wrote 
Bernier, "these soldiers destitute of order and 
marching with the irregularity of a herd of animals, 
without reflecting upon the ease with which 25,000 
of our veterans from the army of Flanders . . . 
would overcome these armies, however numerous." 
" These immense armies," he continues, " frequently 
perform great feats, but when thrown into confusion 
it is impossible to restore them to discipline." 

In short, the time had come when some foreign 
power was destined to stand forth and fulfil the 
dream of Akbar as fashioned by the late Poet 
Laureate : — 

" I watch'd my son 
And those that follow'd, loosen stone from stone 
All my fair work ; and from the ruin arose 
The shriek and curse of trampled millions, even 
As in times before ; but while I groan'd 
From out the sunset poured an alien race 
Who fitted stone to stone again, and Truth, 
Peace, Love, and Justice came and dwelt therein," 



IV. 



FRENCH EFFORTS TO ESTABLISH AN EMPIRE IN 

INDIA. 



FOR long the Dutch, French, and English trading 
Companies had been content to restrict themselves to 
commerce ; their interests not travelling outside the 
limits of their settlements along the sea coast. Their 
servants were merchants engaged in trade, drawing 
but a poor salary. The English president of a 
factory such as Surat received ^500 a year, the head 
merchants ^40 a year after they had first served for 
five years as writers on a yearly salary of £10, and 
then for three years as factors on ^20 a year. 

These merchants were for the most part unnoticed 
by the Mughal Emperors, though they were sometimes 
harassed by the native governors who ruled over the 
territories in the vicinity of their settlements. Neither 
the English nor Dutch ever dreamed of interfering in 
the internal politics of the country, or even of acquir- 
ing land more than sufficient for the defence and pro- 
tection of their trading stations. 

The English settlement started at Madras in 1639, 
on land granted by the ruler at Chandragiri, gradually 

68 



FRENCH IN SOUTH INDIA. 69 

extended itself five miles along the coast and one 
mile inland. North and south of Madras from the 
river Kistna to Cape Comorin, the land was known 
as the Karnatik ruled by a native Governor or Nawab, 
subordinate to a Viceroy or Nizam of the south, who 
held his office direct from the Emperor at Delhi. 
Tanjore and Trichinopoli were under the charge of 
their native Rajas, or Chieftains, who were accountable 
to the Nawab. 

In 1672 when the last native ruler of Bijapur, Sher 
Khan Lodi, found himself in want of money, he 
borrowed it from the French, and, according to Oriental 
custom, gave them in return the right to collect the 
revenues arising from the district around Pondicherry. 
Here Francis Martin fortified his position, making it 
secure against the raids of wandering Marathas who 
in 1677 swept past Madras and pillaged the interven- 
ing villages. 

In 1740 these Marathas to the number of ten 
thousand came swarming down on the south and 
slew the Nawab of the Karnatik. Safdar All, his 
successor, deemed it wise in the disturbed state of 
affairs to send his mother and family to the safe 
keeping of the French at Pondicherry — a precaution 
also adopted by Chanda Sahib, Raja of Trichinopoli, 
who sent there his wife and property. 

The next year the Marathas, on their annual raid, 
carried off Chanda Sahib to their northern fortress of 
Satara, leaving one of their own leaders, Morari Rao, 
with fourteen thousand picked troops in charge of his 
territories. The Viceroy of the south, Nizam-ul-Mulk, 
drove out Morari Rao and in place of Safdar All 



JO FRENCH EFFORTS IN INDIA. 

who had been assassinated, nominated in 1743, one 
Anwar-ud-Dfn, a soldier of fortune, to the governor- 
ship of the Karnatik. 

When England became involved in war with 
France, on the death of Charles VI. of Austria, 
respecting the succession of Maria Theresa, the 
English ships appeared in 1745 off Pondicherry, 
then held by its new Governor, Joseph Francois 
Dupleix. Anwar-ud-Dfn, remembering the services 
rendered by the French to the former Governor of 
the Karnatik, and to Chanda Sahib, in protecting 
their families from the Marathas, at once came to 
the rescue and threatened vengeance against the 
English unless their ships departed from before the 
factory of his friends and allies. The English ships 
sailed away, and on returning the next year found 
that the French Admiral La Bourdonnais had arrived 
from Madagascar with a fleet of nine ships having on 
board 3,342 men, including 720 blacks. After a fight 
at long range, lasting from four in the afternoon until 
seven in the evening, the English admiral deemed it 
advisable to retire to Ceylon, leaving the French fleet 
to sail for Madras, then held by some three hundred 
men, including two hundred so-called soldiers. The 
chief of Madras, Governor Morse, applied in vain to 
the native Governor of the Karnatik for protection. 
Forgetting the Eastern maxim that those seeking 
favours should not appear before kings or rulers 
with empty hands, his envoys carried no presents 
with them, nor did they bring, like the French, any 
record of services rendered in the past, so they 
returned to Madras with their mission unaccom- 



CAPTURE OP MADRAS. *]\ 

plished. On September 18th the French batteries 
and ships opened fire, and Fort St. George sur- 
rendered on the 2 ist after having lost five men. 

Dupleix had promised the Governor of the Karnatik 
to hand over to him Madras when taken. Unfortu- 
nately the French Admiral La Bourdonnais had 
agreed to restore Madras to the English for the sum 
of ^421, 666, payable in Europe in six months, and, 
as it was afterwards alleged, for a personal present 
of ^40,000 — a false charge of which he was acquitted 
by his own Government. 

The quarrel between the French admiral and 
French general waged fierce and long, Dupleix 
striving with all the tenacity, skill, and finesse of 
which he was so perfect a master, to oppose La 
Bourdonnais and prevent Madras being restored to 
the English. In the midst of their disputes the 
annual monsoon storm burst, on the night of October 
13th, and of the admiral's eight ships four foundered, 
two were virtually destroyed, and two rendered un- 
seaworthy, while over twelve hundred of his men 
perished in the seas. 

The plans of La Bourdonnais were wrecked. He 
hastened home to add his name to the long list of 
those whose fame and life have been sacrificed in their 
efforts to found their countries' fortunes in the East. 
He was cast into the Bastille, where he lay for three 
years in solitary confinement, dying shortly after his 
release of a broken heart. 

Dupleix was left with Madras to sell or to destroy. 
He tore the Treaty of La Bourdonnais in pieces, and 
sent the English garrison in captivity to Pondicherry, 



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FRENCH SUCCESSES. 73 

a few daring spirits escaping to find a refuge in 
Fort St. David — a weak fortress twelve miles south 
of Pondicherry — garrisoned by a handful of soldiers, 
one hundred Europeans, and one hundred sepoys. 

The Governor of the Karnatik was, however, de- 
termined that the French should not hold Madras. 
He advanced at the head of six thousand horse and 
three thousand foot to compel Dupleix to keep his 
promise, certain that the host he commanded was 
sufficient to drive all foes out of his territories. 

For one hundred years the foreigners had been 
overlooked by the native rulers. As traders they 
had come and gone peacefully. If they dared to 
transgress the will of the Emperor or disobey the 
dictates of his Viceroy in the south, there were ten 
thousand native soldiers, foot and horse, for every 
foreign soldier then in India. 

The rude awakening was now to come. Four 
hundred of the French garrison sallied out with 
two small field-pieces to meet the charge of the 
native cavalry. Slowly the French force opened 
out, and seventy of the foremost native troopers 
fell before the rapid fire of the French guns. The 
Nawab and his army turned and fled, leaving the 
French masters of the field without the loss of a 
single man. 

The weakness of native troops, when not under the 
discipline and firm rule of European officers, had been 
shown by the Portuguese in 1 504, when Pacheco, with 
a little over one hundred Europeans and a few hundred 
native soldiers of the King of Cannanore, defeated the 
Zamorin of Calicut, driving back an army of fifty 



74 FRENCH EFFORTS FY INDIA. 

thousand with heavy loss. It was pointed out by 
Leibnitz to Louis XIV. ; it was known to Dupleix ; 
it was afterward recognised by De Boigne when he 
counselled Scindia's invincible Maratha infantry never 
to dare face the Company's troops ; it was seen later 
by Baron Hiigel, who told Ranjit Singh that the 
Sikhs would inevitably fall back defeated before the 
English battalions. 

While the army of the Nawab halted on the banks 
of the Adyar river, wondering over its defeat, the 
brave but ill-fated Mons. Paradis marched forth 
against it from Pondicherry with two hundred and 
thirty Europeans and seven hundred sepoys. The 
French were now without guns, yet, rushing through 
the river, they drove the terror-stricken army before 
them, the pursuit continuing through the streets of 
St. Thome. Fresh troops from Madras appeared on 
the scene and completed the rout. Those left of the 
Nawab's forces found refuge behind the walls of 
Arcot, whence they spread the tidings far and wide 
of the newly discovered power of the foreign traders. 

There was none now to stay the advancing tide of 
French supremacy. The English entrenched at Fort 
St. David were but a few hundred in number, sup- 
ported by some hastily armed peons or servants. 
There they held out, although the French advanced 
against them four times, until Rear-Admiral the Hon. 
E. Boscawen, who had arrived from England with 
fourteen hundred regular troops joined the fleet of 
Admiral Griffin, and came to the rescue with thirty 
ships, of which thirteen were ships of war. The 
English were now in turn able to lay siege to Pondi- 



DUPLEIX. />$ 

cherry ; but after an investment, lasting from Sep- 
tember 6th to October 17th, during which they lost 
one thousand and sixty-five men, and the French but 
two hundred Europeans and fifty natives, the mon- 
soon storm burst and the fleet had to sail away, 
leaving Pondicherry safe in the hands of the French. 
By the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle peace was restored, 
and, to the mortification of Dupleix, Madras was 
given back to the English in exchange for Cape St. 
Breton. 

In 1748 the Viceroy of the south died, leaving the 
succession to his son Nasir Jang — a succession disputed 
by Muzaffar Jang, a grandson of Nizam-ul-Mulk. 
Dupleix again played his game with consummate 
skill. Throwing in his lot with Muzaffar Jang, who 
had been joined .by the Marathas and Chanda Sahib, 
freed from his imprisonment at Satara, the combined 
army advanced against Anwar-ud-Dm, Governor of 
the Karnatik. 

At Ambur Anwar-ud-Dm was shot through the 
head by a stray bullet, his army scattered, his son, 
Muhammad All, escaping to Trichinopoli to seek the 
protection of the English. Chanda Sahib was im- 
mediately proclaimed at Arcot as Governor of the 
Karnatik, and the French were given as a reward 
for their aid eighty-one villages near Pondicherry. 

Dupleix had succeeded at length in gaining political 
influence over the internal affairs of the south, stand- 
ing forth as the friend and ally of the Viceroy, 
Muzaffar Jang, and the Nawab Chanda Sahib. The 
English, on the other hand, had cast in their lot with 
the two defeated candidates, Nasir Jang and Mu- 



J 6 FRENCH EFFORTS IN INDIA. 

hammad All. Whichever side, French or English, 
would now succeed in successfully supporting their 
rival claimants might ultimately hope to reign supreme 
over the whole political affairs of the south of India. 
The French quickly followed up their success by 
capturing, in the night-time, with a loss of but twenty 
men, the fortress of Gingi, a stronghold of Nasir Jang, 
always held to be impregnable— a success which 
enabled them to induce most of the native troops to 
forsake the cause of Nasir Jang, who soon afterwards 
was shot through the heart by one of his own allies. 
Muzaffa'r Jang and Chanda Sahib were at once, amid 
a scene of Oriental pomp, respectively installed Vice- 
roy of the South, and Governor of the Karnatik, 
Dupleix receiving in return the title of Commander 
of Seven Hundred Horse and the right to coin 
money current all over the south. 

The French were now dictators over the affairs of 
the Karnatik, ruling in the name of Chanda Sahib. 
As the new Viceroy Muzaffar Jang was being 
escorted by Mons. Bussy and three hundred French 
soldiers to his capital at Aurangabad he was attacked 
by some opposing native forces and slain, pierced 
by a javelin in the forehead. The position was at 
once retrieved by Bussy. Salabat Jang, a son of 
Nizam-ul-Mulk, was proclaimed Viceroy, Bussy re- 
maining with his troops at Aurangabad to support 
the new administration. 

The policy of Dupleix had succeeded beyond 
expectation ; the English were left without allies, 
their only friend, Muhammad Ah', aided by six 
hundred Englishmen, was closely besieged at Tri- 



POSITION HOPELESS. 



77 



chinopoli by nine hundred Frenchmen and the 
army of Chanda Sahib. The position seemed 
hopeless. There was, however, one Englishman 
forthcoming who, by his reckless daring, dogged 
tenacity, and stubborn perseverance, not only suc- 
ceeded in thwarting the diplomatic ingenuity by 
which Dupleix had made the French influence 
supreme in the native states but in establishing, for 
the first time, the prestige of the English in India. 
This man was the ill-fated Robert Clive. 




V. 



ROBERT CLIVE. 



CLIVE was born on the 29th of September, 1725, 
near Market Drayton in Shropshire. Wayward and 
reckless as a schoolboy, he early showed signs of 
those talents which he afterwards so conspicuously 
exercised. Legend loves to tell how he climbed the 
high steeple of Market Drayton, and there, to terrify 
the townspeople, seated himself on the edge of a 
projecting stone. The story is also well known how 
he levied blackmail on the shopkeepers, threatening 
to break their windows unless they submitted to his 
demands and those of his schoolfellows. 

In the year 1744 he landed at Madras as a writer 
in the service of the East India Company. There 
he listened in gloomy silence to the empty talk of 
his brother writers whose lives were wasted in idle 
folly and reckless dissipation. In bitter grief he 
wrote home, " I have not enjoyed one happy day 
since I left my native land." At length his proud 
spirit, finding no relief from its surging thoughts, 
sought refuge from inaction in death. The pistol, 
well loaded and primed, was twice pointed at his 



CLIVE IX MADRAS. 79 

head, twice it missed fire ; a moment afterwards a 
friend entered the room, and seeing Clive sitting 




ROBERT, LORD CLIVE. 

(From Malcolm's " Life of Clive.") 



morose and silent, raised the pistol and discharged 

it from the window at the first touch of the trigger. 

From that day Clive woke to life. He was well 



80 ROBERT CLIVE. 

assured in his own mind that he had been spared for 
some great purpose, to take some great part in the 
history of his people — a part he afterwards played with 
a recklessness which can only be accounted for on the 
supposition that he believed he bore a charmed life. 
In Malcolm's " Life of Clive" it is told how, during a 
duel with an officer whom he had accused of cheating 
at cards, he missed his antagonist, who thereupon 
advanced, and holding his pistol to Clive's head 
threatened to fire unless an apology was at once 

made. " Fire and be d d," said Clive ; " I said 

you cheated, and I say so still." 

During % the siege of Pondicherry, having obtained a 
temporary commission as ensign, he greatly distin- 
guished himself, but on the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle 
had to return to the uncongenial employment of 
measuring cloth and checking office accounts. A 
welcome relief soon came. The native ruler of 
Tanjore, Raja Sahuji, being deposed, appealed to the 
English to reinstate him. As a reward for this service 
he offered to bear all the expenses of the war and on 
reinstatement to surrender to the Company the fort 
and lands around Devikota. The English failed in 
their efforts to restore Sahuji ; still, they determined to 
have their promised reward. Major Lawrence, with 
six ships, fifteen hundred native troops and eight 
hundred Europeans, sailed up the Coleroon and 
having breached the fort directed Clive, who had 
again obtained a temporary commission as lieutenant, 
to advance with the native troops and thirty-four 
Europeans across a deep rivulet to storm the breach 
and capture the fort. Clive charged at the head of 



TRICHINOPOLI. 8 1 

his troops ; the sepoys held back, and of the Europeans 
twenty-six were cut to pieces by the enemy's horse- 
men. Clive, however, escaped, having, in the words 
of Lawrence, behaved with " a cool courage and a 
presence of mind which never left him in the greatest 
danger. Born a soldier, for without a military 
education of any sort or much conversing with any of 
the profession, from his judgment and good sense, he 
led an army like an experienced officer and brave 
soldier." 

The fort was afterwards taken and with the sur- 
rounding lands, which brought in a revenue of 36,000 
rupees, given over to the Company. 

Clive was next directed to proceed from Madras 
with one hundred English and fifty sepoys, to the 
relief of the force at Trichinopoli where Muhammad 
All, was hemmed in by the French and the army of 
Chanda Sahib. For this duty Clive was nominated 
by the Governor, Mr. Saunders, the order in Council 
stating, " We will give him (Mr. Robert Clive) a brevet 
to entitle him to the rank of Captain, as he was an 
officer at the siege of Pondicherry and almost the 
whole time of the war distinguished himself on many 
occasions, it is conceived that this officer may be of 
some service." 

The genius of Clive shone ever brightest in times 
of extreme danger and in situations where others 
might well deem all was lost, when by a clear and 
quick perception of all surrounding facts he rapidly 
evolved plans for safety or victory which his calm 
courage and inflexible determination sooner or later 
enabled him to carry into execution. He saw that the 

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DEFENCE OF ARCOT. 83 

situation at Trichinopoli was hopeless, but he noticed 
that Chanda Sahib, in over-eagerness to crush the 
English, had summoned all the troops from the 
capital at Arcot, leaving its weak fortifications de- 
fended by only 1,1 00 sepoys. Clive at once deter- 
mined to make a bold dash for the capture of Arcot, 
intending to hold it until Chanda Sahib and the 
French should be compelled to come to its rescue 
and raise the siege of Trichinopoli. Hurrying back 
to Madras, he persuaded the Governor to place at 
his disposal all the available troops, two hundred 
English and three hundred sepoys, with whom and 
three small guns he set out on his heroic enter- 
prise. 

At Arcot, sixty-nine miles from Madras, consterna- 
tion reigned. Travellers brought in word that Clive 
and the English soldiers were advancing ; that they 
had been seen marching unconcerned through a 
fearful storm of thunder, rain, and lightning. On 
receipt of the news the garrison fled, leaving the 
fort to Clive and his small band of Europeans and 
sepoys. For fifty days Clive held out against the 
allied troops sent against him. He repelled assault 
after assault ; he led charges to drive the enemy 
from their advanced entrenchments ; he even marched 
out to protect some new guns coming to his aid 
from Madras. The sepoys, in this memorable de- 
fence of the fort of Arcot, stood side by side with 
the English soldiers to whom they gave their scanty 
portion of boiled rice, saying that they could live 
on the water in which it had been boiled. 

The brilliant stratagem conceived by the master- 



84 ROBERT CLIVE. 

mind of Clive succeeded : Chanda Sahib and his 
French allies were obliged to send troops to aid in 
the siege of Arcot, thereby weakening the forces 
before Trichinopoli and infusing fresh courage into 
Muhammad All and his dispirited supporters. The 
fort was breached, by aid of the newly arrived troops, 
and Clive was left with but eighty Europeans and 
one hundred and thirty sepoys to defend the dis- 
mantled walls one mile in circumference. 

On November 14th the enemy, intoxicated with 
bhang and drunk with the fury of their religious 
fanaticism, advanced in four divisions ; two divisions 
headed by elephants with iron plates on their fore- 
heads to break in the gates, two divisions to mount 
the breaches. Clive and his handful of heroes fought 
for their lives along the crumbling walls. From post 
to post they hurried, driving back the swarming foe, 
Clive, with his own hands working the guns, at one 
shot clearing seventy men off a raft on which they 
strove to cross the moat. After an hour's fight the 
besiegers were driven back, having lost four hundred 
killed and wounded in their attack, while of the 
defenders only four Europeans and two sepoys fell. 
Clive was reinforced from Fort St. David with two 
hundred Europeans and seven hundred sepoys, and 
at once marched out from behind his ramparts, 
captured the fort of Timeri, joined a band of one 
thousand Marathas under Morari Rao, and fought his 
first decisive battle against the French and their 
allies, beating a force double his own in numbers at 
Ami, seventeen miles south of Arcot. He then drove 
the French from Conjeveram, reinforced Arcot, and 



kaveripAk. 85 

returned victorious to Fort St. David to receive the 
congratulations of the Governor and Council. 

The French and their allies followed, raiding the 
country up to St. Thomas' Mount, but when Clive 
sallied forth against them from Madras at the head of 
380 Europeans and 1,000 sepoys, with three field- 
pieces, they retreated to Kaveripak, a village lying 
ten miles east of Arcot. There they concealed their 
artillery and cavalry in a dense grove of mango-trees 
by the side of the main road, along which they knew 
Clive must advance, and in a deep channel on the 
other side they hid away their infantry. As Clive 
and his troops marched leisurely down the road, in 
easy confidence, they were suddenly met by a fire 
from a battery of nine guns, which swept their ranks 
at not more than 250 yards' distance. 

Clive, undoubtedly, over and over again led his 
troops with reckless carelessness into positions such 
as this, from which nothing but his own genius, which 
seemed to draw inspiration from the very presence 
of danger, could have ever extricated them. It is 
easy to cavil at his conduct and tell the tale of 
disaster that might have followed if he had failed; 
but fail he never did, for with a charmed life he 
faced his enemies amid the smoke and hurry of 
battle with the same cool determination with which 
he afterwards faced his opponents in the Council 
Chamber. 

It was late in the afternoon when Clive and his 
troops marched into the midst of their enemies at 
Kaveripak, and little time remained for action. With 
a small body of infantry and two guns he held back 



86 ROBERT CLIVE. 

the enemy's cavalry, directing the rest of his troops 
to seek shelter from the guns in the water-channel 
by the roadside, and thence keep up a fire on the 
French infantry. 

For two hours the artillery fire continued, the 
cavalry repeatedly charging Clive's guns and bag- 
gage. At length it was discovered that the French 
had neglected to defend the back of the grove where 
their guns were posted. Clive secretly despatched 
two hundred Europeans and four hundred sepoys to 
within thirty yards of the French battery, whence they 
poured in a volley among the gunners, who fled, 
leaving their guns behind them. The victory, though 
decisive, was dearly won ; forty of Clive's European 
troops and thirty sepoys lay dead. The newly won 
prestige of the French in the south had, however, 
been shattered. Clive, before he returned to Madras 
razed to the ground a city Dupleix had founded 
and called after his own name, overturning the 
triumphal column therein erected, on which was 
emblazoned in many languages a full record of the 
French victories. 

From Trichinopoli the French, heedless of the 
remonstrances of Dupleix, retreated to the neigh- 
bouring island of Srfrangam, leaving Chanda Sahib 
to his fate. To cut off their retreat and to prevent 
reinforcements reaching them, Clive took up a posi- 
tion in the village of Samiaveram, eleven miles north 
of the island, where now the French were practically 
isolated. 

On the night of April 14, 1752, Clive, wearied from 
a long day's operations he had carried out in order 



NIGHT ATTACK ON CLIVE. 87 

to prevent a relieving force from Pondicherry break- 
ing through the English and joining the French, lay 
down to sleep in a rest-house near the entrance 
gateway of the village temple. The camp was 
quiet : the English soldiers, Maratha troopers, and 
allied sepoys were sleeping uneasily in and near the 
temple, while close at hand the sentinels, but half 
awake, paced to and fro. In the dead of night seven 
hundred of the enemy's sepoys and eighty Euro- 
peans stole silently towards the camp, guided by a 
band of deserters from the English. The drowsy 
inquiries of the sentinels were answered by whispers 
that the force was a relief sent from Lawrence. 
Silently making their way to the front of the temple 
gate, the enemy first gave notice of their presence by 
pouring volley after volley amid the sleeping soldiers. 
In an instant the camp awoke in startled surprise. 
Moans from the dying and confused cries from the 
awakened soldiers were mingled with the clatter of 
arms and heavy boom of the enemy's muskets. 
Through the shed where Clive lay sleeping, the bullets 
flew ; a soldier by his side was shot dead, and a box 
at the foot of his cot was shattered to fragments. 
Deeming that the firing close at hand came from 
his own troops, blindly repelling some imaginary 
attack, Clive rushed forward and beat down the 
guns with his hands, commanding the firing to 
cease. He was attacked by six Frenchmen, seriously 
wounded, and summoned to surrender. Wounded 
and faint though he was, he grasped the situation in 
a moment. Raising himself, he cried out to the 
French soldiers that they were surrounded, and 



88 ROBERT CLIVE. 

ordered them to surrender. His tone and manner 
carried instant conviction ; the six Frenchmen in the 
confusion gave up their arms. The native troops 
broke away to fly from the vengeance of the fierce 
Marathas, who were afterwards heard to declare that 
not a single sepoy who entered the camp that night 
escaped with his life. The remaining French soldiers 
with the European deserters sought refuge in the 
temple where, as it was found impossible to dislodge 
them, they were shut in till dawn. In the morning 
the temple was stormed, and after the French had 
lost twelve men, Clive, weak and faint from his 
wound, was led to the temple gate by two sergeants 
who stood by his side supporting him. As he stood 
swaying to and fro offering terms one of the deserters 
fired ; the shot missed Clive, slaying the two ser- 
geants who were standing slightly in front. Horrified 
by the treacherous act the French threw down their 
arms and capitulated. 

Shortly after the entire French troops under 
Captain Law surrendered to Lawrence, and the re- 
lieving force under d'Auteuil to Clive, who, now 
completely broken down by the arduous campaign, 
returned home in 1753. 

Dupleix remained still striving to re-establish the 
French influence with the native rulers of the south. 
But the French Company realised not the value of his 
acquisitions, and knew not the meaning of his policy. 
Traders they were, and their profits were now falling 
fast. Acquisition of territory or bearing of Eastern 
titles by their Governors in the East had for them no 
interest. In vain Dupleix pleaded for time ; in vain, 



DUPLE IX AND CLIVE. 89 

in order to carry out his designs, he expended the 
wealth he had accumulated by private trade or gained 
from foreign princes ; he was ignominiously recalled, 
and his successor Godeheu, who arrived in 1754, re- 
signed the exclusive right over the rich and fertile 
Northern Circars which Dupleix had succeeded in 
gaining for the French, and gave up all claim to the 
sounding titles so eagerly sought after by his prede- 
cessor. Insulted and laughed at at home as an 
impostor when he pressed his claims for the return 
of the money he had spent in the service of his 
country, Dupleix sank deeper and deeper into poverty 
and dejection, until at length, three days before his 
death, he wrote in the bitterness of despair, " My 
services are treated as fables, my demand is denounced 
as ridiculous ; I am treated as the vilest of mankind ; 
I am in the most deplorable indigence." 

Clive, on the other hand, had been feasted and 
toasted by the Court of Directors, and presented 
with a diamond-hilted sword, " as a token of their 
esteem and of their sense of his singular services," 
which he refused to receive until his old friend and 
commander, Major Lawrence, was also likewise 
honoured. 

Clive soon grew tired of an inactive life in England. 
The excitement of a contested election led to nothing 
but loss of time, patience, and money, so in 1755 he 
sailed again for India, having accepted a commission 
of lieutenant-colonel in the British Army, the ap- 
pointment of Governor of Fort St. David and the 
succession to the Governorship of Madras. He 
reached Fort St. David on the 20th of June, 1756, 



90 ROBERT CLIVE. 

the day of the dire tragedy of the Black Hole of 
Calcutta. 

Siraj-ud-Daula, Viceroy of Bengal, Behar, and 
Orissa, had long watched, with growing distrust and 
haughty anger, the dominant position gradually 
acquired by the English and French traders in his 
dominions. Forts had been built, fortifications raised, 
refuge given to those flying from his wrath or cupidity, 
while round Calcutta the famed Maratha ditch had 
been laboriously dug, though never completed, to 
keep out the Marathas, who levied chauth from all 
villages in reach of their flying cohorts. 

Not satisfied with the assurances given him by the 
Governor of Calcutta that the new fortifications had 
not been raised against the native powers, but in view 
of the coming war between France and England, 
Siraj-ud-Daula first captured the English factory at 
Kasimbazar, and then marched for Calcutta at the 
head of his forces, followed by the robber-bands in the 
neighbourhood to the number of some forty thousand, 
all eager to share in the sack of the rich city of the 
English traders. Of riches there were but little at 
Calcutta, and of defences virtually none. There were 
obsolete shells and fuses, dismantled guns, walls too 
weak to support cannon, and warehouses built in the 
line of fire to the south. The garrison consisted of 
one hundred and eighty men, of whom only one-third 
were Europeans. Gallantly the handful of English- 
men set to work to erect outlying batteries, and dig 
trenches, they were even reduced to seek ammunition 
and help from the French and Dutch factories — an 
aid, however, withheld. The women and children 



CAPTURE OF CALCUTTA. 9 1 

took refuge in the ships lying in the river, two 
Members of Council, officers of militia earning un- 
dying infamy, and subsequent dismissal for desertion, 
by volunteering to accompany the fugitives and re- 
fusing to return even when taunted for their cowardice. 
The Commandant, Captain Minchin, likewise fled, 
accompanied by the Governor, Mr. Drake, who un- 
luckily escaped the parting shots fired after him by 
his comrades, with whom he lacked courage to re- 
main as they slowly turned to meet the foe. Well 
might it be imagined that history could never hand 
down a tale of fouler shame and infamy. So might 
the garrison have thought were it not for the fact 
that as they turned, with despair in their hearts, to 
meet their swarming foes, they saw the last of the 
ships sail out of sight, Captain Young of the 
Dodolay finding courage sufficient to declare that 
it would be dangerous to wait near or even to 
send a boat to take off his countrymen. Prayed to 
return and bear away the wounded, he refused ; 
prayed to send a boat with ammunition, for that in 
the fort was all but exhausted, he refused ; prayed to 
throw a cable to the Prince George, which had 
stranded in endeavouring to return, he refused, saying 
he needed all he had for the safety of his own ship. 
For five days the garrison, headed by the famed 
civilian, Mr. Holwell, held out until out of one 
hundred and seventy men fifty were wounded and 
twenty-five killed. At length Holwell had to sur- 
render, delivering up his sword to Siraj-ud-Daula on 
a promise that no harm should befall his followers. 
To those who have not lived in the burning plains 



92 ROBERT CLIVE. 

of India during the long months, when the brazen 
rays of the sun pass away towards the close of evening, 
and the blasts of the hot winds cease, only to be 
succeeded by the dead, stifling heat when even the 
birds fall to the ground gasping with open beaks for 
breath, no pen can ever convey an idea of the suffer- 
ings of those who died in agony on that night of the 
20th of June, when Calcutta was surrendered to 
Siraj-ud-Daula. 

As the night approached the prisoners, one hundred 
and forty-six in number, all wearied and many 
wounded, were gathered together in the fort. In the 
guard-room a space of eighteen feet square had been 
walled in to form a prison cell. It had but two small 
iron-barred windows, opening into a low verandah. 
Into this cell, known to history as " The Black Hole 
of Calcutta," the prisoners were driven at the point 
of the bayonet. 

Holwell has told the story of that night, which, 
once read, ever haunts the memory, like the wild 
imaginings of a fevered nightmare, with vivid pictures 
of unutterable woes and fearful sufferings. 

The first words of Holwell, advising the struggling 
crowd to make more room by removing their gar- 
ments, were drowned by the cries of the weak and 
moans of the wounded. After some time the com- 
mand to sit down was obeyed, but many had no 
strength to rise again, and were soon trampled to 
death. With frantic shrieks the living cried for air ; 
with frenzied struggles they fought for the water their 
guards held out, the few drops that reached their 
parched lips but increasing their raging thirst. The 



BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA. 93 

guards came close with lanterns to watch the scene, but 
no words of foul abuse could rouse them to shoot their 
victims, nor premises of reward induce them to unbar 
the door, or even remove the dying. The narrative 
ends before the full tale of suffering was complete, for 
the narrator, Mr. Holwell, tells nothing after 2 a.m., 
when he wrote, " I found a stupor coming on apace, 
and laid myself down by that gallant old man, the 
Rev. Mr. Jervas Bellamy, who lay dead with his son 
the Lieutenant hand in hand." 

In the morning twenty-three survivors were carried 
out of the "Black Hole," amongst them one woman, 
Mrs. Carey, whose husband had perished. From out 
the whole dark history there comes but one ray of 
consolation, for, from the evidence collected by Dr. 
Busteed in his " Echoes from Old Calcutta," it is clear 
that Mrs. Carey was spared the ignominous fate it 
was long believed she suffered, as narrated by Hol- 
well, Orme, Macaulay, and other historians. It seems 
now certain that she was released and lived in honour, 
down to the year 1801, among her own people. 

It is possible that Siraj-ud-Daula may have known 
nothing of the events that transpired during the 
night, but when details of the slaughter were brought 
to him in the morning he displayed neither emotion 
nor regret, venting his rage at finding but ^"5,000 in 
the Treasury by ordering that Holwell and the 
European survivors should at once quit Calcutta 
under pain of having their noses and ears cut off. 

On news of the disaster reaching Madras Clive was 
directed to hasten with all available troops to Bengal, 
accompanied by the English fleet under Admiral 



94 ROBERT CLIVE. 

Watson. It was not until the end of the year that 
the ships sailed up the Hugh' and landed Clive and 
his troops at Maiapur. After a weary march of 
fifteen hours over swampy land the force arrived 
late at night within one mile and a half of the fort 
of Baj-baj, twelve miles from Calcutta, where, weary 
and tired, they lay down to rest in the bed of a 
dried-up lake, intending to attack the fort in the 
morning. They were here surrounded by the enemy, 
who, as soon as all were sleeping in the camp, opened 
fire and seized the guns, which had been left unpro- 
tected and unguarded. Clive had again, with careless 
indifference, marched straight into the midst of the 
enemy, but again his presence of mind saved him. 
Advancing his soldiers the guns were recovered, the 
foe driven off with heavy slaughter, and in his own 
words, " the skirmish in all lasted about half an hour, 
in which time ... 9 private men were killed and 8 
wounded." In the meantime the guns from Admiral 
Watson's fleet breached the fort, and a body of sailors 
landed to co-operate with Clive. One of the sailors, 
named Strahan, being intoxicated, lost his way, and 
stumbled about until he reached the fort, which he 
entered through one of the breaches. Finding him- 
self alone in the midst of the garrison he fired his 
pistol, and cut right and left with his cutlass, crying 
lustily that he had captured the fort. The sepoys, 
deeming they had been surprised, seized their arms, 
fired random shots in all directions, and then fled. 
The English troops, hearing the strange commotion, 
came to the rescue and took possession of the fort. 
So the night of strange accidents closed, and, on 



CLIVE AT CALCUTTA. 95 

Strahan being ordered up for punishment in the 
morning, he indignantly swore that if he was flogged, 
he would never again so long as he lived, take another 
fort by himself. 

The fort at Hugh' was captured by Captain Eyre 
Coote with a loss of two Europeans and ten sepoys, 
after which the avenging force raided the surrounding 
country, returning to Calcutta with a booty of some 

;£ I 50,000. 

Siraj-ud-Daula, raging at the insult offered to his 
power, at once collected together troops to the number 
of 40,000, and marched again towards Calcutta, his 
course being marked by the smoke and flames from 
the villages his followers burned and plundered. 
Clive collected together all his troops — 650 European 
soldiers, 600 sailors from Watson's fleet, 14 field- 
pieces, with 1 50 European artillery, and 800 sepoys — 
and started on February 4th, at three o'clock in the 
morning to drive Siraj-ud-Daula's immense army from 
before Calcutta. In a dense fog he marched on, his 
troops pausing now and then to fire, they knew not 
where, to their right and left. A rocket from the 
enemy's outposts exploded the ammunition in the 
cartouche-box of one of Clive's sepoys, and was 
followed by explosions from the ammunition of other 
sepoys close by. Still they pressed on, the guns in 
the rear mowing down their own troops in front, 
none recognising friend or foe in the dense mist. 
The cavalry of Siraj-ud-Daula, riding close up to 
Clive's troops, broke back when met by a volley fired 
at random in the direction of the charging horses. 
In the early morning, on the fog rising, Clive retired 



g6 ROBERT CLIVE. 

and reached Calcutta towards noon, having lost two 
field-pieces, twenty Europeans, and one hundred 
sepoys in his daring assault. 

The enemy was thoroughly cowed. Siraj-ud-Daula 
withdrew his troops and sued for peace, for not only 
did he fear the next move of Clive, but from the 
north came the dreaded news that the Afghans, 
under Ahmad Shah Durani, had invaded the land 
and captured the imperial city of Delhi. 

Clive was nothing loth to enter into a truce. War 
had been declared between Great Britain and France, 
and he was anxious to obtain the aid and consent of 
Siraj-ud-Daula to an attack on the French settlement 
at Chandranagar. A treaty of alliance, offensive and 
defensive, against all common foes, was accordingly 
entered into. Siraj-ud-Daula agreed to give up all 
the factories and property he had taken. The 
Company was granted permission to fortify Calcutta, 
to coin money at their own mint, and to carry their 
merchandise through native territory without payment 
of tolls. 

The treaty signed, the Viceroy wavered in his 
promise to aid the English in their attack on the 
French settlement. The fame of the troops of Bussy 
had reached his ears, and it was whispered abroad 
that a great French army was advancing from 
Haidarabad to drive the English out of India. 

Admiral Watson was, however, not to be thus 
trifled with. He at once demanded that Siraj-ud- 
Daula should keep his word, else, as he wrote, " I 
will kindle such a flame in your country as all the 
water of the Ganges shall not be able to extinguish. 



FRENCH LOSSES. Qj 

Farewell ; remember that he who promises you this 
never yet broke his word with you or with any man 
whatsoever." 

With or without the consent or aid of the Viceroy 
it was at length decided that Chandranagar should 
be attacked before Bussy could come to the rescue. 

At Chandranagar the French had but a feeble 
garrison of 146 Europeans and 300 sepoys, supple- 
mented by 300 civilians and sailors hastily armed. 
Against these Admiral Watson brought up his fleet — 
The Kent, of 64 guns ; The Tiger, of 60 guns ; and 
The Salisbury, of 50 guns — while Clive advanced by 
land with 700 Europeans, 1,500 sepoys and artillery. 
Defence was not long possible ; treachery showed 
Watson a safe passage for his ships, the bastions 
were swept of their defenders, 100 of the garrison 
were slain, and on the 23rd of March, 1757, the 
fort surrendered. 

This success of the English so roused the fear and 
anger of Siraj-ud-Daula, that he wrote to Bussy, 
praying him to march from the Deccan to his aid. 
The letters fell into the hands of Clive, who summed 
up the situation by declaring " the Nawab is a villain 
and cannot be trusted ; he must be overset or we 
must fall." 

Mir Jafar, the Commander of Siraj-ud-Daula's 
force, was bribed with the promise of being made 
Viceroy if he could succeed in bringing over his 
troops to the side of the English and aid in deposing 
Siraj-ud-Daula. 

The contemplated treachery of Mir Jafar was 
known to many, but the secret was well kept, Amin- 

8 



98 ROBERT CLIVE. 

chand, a wealthy Hindu banker, being the chief agent 
in carrying out the negotiations. At the last moment 
Clive found his carefully laid plans likely to fail, for 
Aminchand suddenly declared that he would reveal 
the plot to Siraj-ud-Daula unless he received a 
promise that his share of the spoil should be 5 per 
cent, on all the treasures at Murshidabad, or a sum 
of 30 lakhs of rupees, more than ^"300,000. Clive 
bought the silence of Aminchand, promising to give 
him all he desired, and to sign a deed to that 
effect. To Watts, Resident at the Viceroy's Court, 
and chief agent in the revolution, Clive wrote : 
" Omichund is the greatest villain upon earth . . . 
to counter-plot the scoundrel and at the same time to 
give him no room to suspect our intentions enclosed 
you will receive two forms of agreement, the one real 
to be strictly kept by us, the other fictitious." The 
real treaty, signed by all the allies, was on white 
paper, the fictitious treaty was on red paper, similarly 
signed, with the exception of the signature of 
Admiral Watson, which was forged when he bluntly 
refused to have anything to do with the intrigue. 
Clive, when afterwards asked before the House of 
Commons to defend his action, haughtily replied that 
he thought " it warrantable in such a case, and would 
do it again one hundred times." The announcement 
of the forgery was, after the battle, made by Clive in 
the following words : " Omichund, the red paper is a 
trick ; you are to have nothing." 

In after years, when the Duke of Wellington 
traced out on the field of Plassey the lines on which 
was fought the first great battle, establishing the 



PLASSEY. 99 

supremacy of the English in India, his admiration 
for the genius of Clive must have been mingled 
with feelings of sorrow that the fame of the great 
General would ever be tarnished by that one act of 
calculated deceit. 

At Plassey Clive stood with nine small guns and a 
band of 3,000 men, of whom 2,100 were native troops, 
surrounded by 35,000 infantry, 15,000 cavalry of 
fierce and warlike Pathans, 53 pieces of artillery, and 
a body of Frenchmen forty to fifty in number. Clive 
paused long before venturing to attack, for he knew 
that if Mir Jafar again turned traitor and joined 
his forces to those of the Viceroy none among the 
British troops would escape to tell the tale. 

The danger of the situation is seen from the fact 
that Clive for the first time called together a council 
of his officers, to whom he proposed the question, 
" Whether, in our present position, without assistance, 
and on our own bottom, it would be prudent to 
attack, or whether we should wait till joined by some 
native power ? " 

Clive's own name heads the list of those who voted 
for no further advance, Eyre Coote's name heads the 
list of those who voted for immediate attack. When 
the Council broke up Clive wandered apart by him- 
self, and after some hours spent in solitary meditation 
beneath the shade of the trees by the river bank he 
returned to tell his officers to prepare their men to 
cross the river on the following morning, for he had 
determined to risk all in one great effort to establish 
the supremacy of the English in India. On the 23rd 
of June, 1757, as the first rays of the hot morning 



100 ROBERT CLIVE. 

sun blazed across the wide field of Plassey, Clive 
ascended to the roof of a small hunting hut in which 
he had lain without sleep during the night. To his 
right were the troops of the wavering traitor, Mir 
Jafar, now biding his time to cast in his lot with the 
side likely to win. Should Clive be defeated, Mir 
Jafar's cavalry were ready to sweep down on his rear 
and pillage his baggage ; should the hosts of Siraj- 
ud-Daula fall back, the troops of his trusted Com- 
mander-in-Chief would range themselves beside those 
of Clive. From where stood the camp of Mir Jafar, 
38,000 of the enemy, with the French and their guns 
in the centre, stretched in a semicircle round the 
soldiers of Clive, still sleeping quietly in a large 
mango grove guarded by a ditch and strong mud 
banks. As Clive watched the scene in front of him 
the first shot from the French guns woke the English 
and laid low two of their number. Soon the heavy 
artillery of the enemy was in full play, answered back 
by Clive's six light guns. Eagerly the serried masses 
of Siraj-ud-Daula pressed forward to drive the 
handful of English into the deep Bhagirathi, but 
Clive's soldiers lay safe behind the shelter of the mud 
banks, and the shells and shot sang harmlessly over- 
head amid the branches of the mango-trees. By 
noon the rain came down in torrents, and the enemy's 
ammunition, soaked through and through, was ren- 
dered useless, so that their fire gradually slackened, 
while Clive's guns and ammunition had been covered 
up and kept dry. 

Mir Madan, chief of the native cavalry, loved and 
trusted by Siraj-ud-Daula, determined in one brave 



PLASSEY. 10 1 

effort to silence the English gunners, but as he 
charged at the head of his cavalry he fell dead before 
the flying grape-shot. With frantic haste Siraj-ud- 
Daula gave orders for the troops to fall back. He 
called Mir Jafar to his side, told him of his loss, 
and casting his turban at the traitor's feet, prayed 
him to fight against the foreign foe. Mir Jafar, vow- 
ing that he would bring up his troops and defend 
his chief, hastened away to send word to Clive to 
advance and win the day. The English charged 
from their entrenchments, taking care to fire now and 
then on the treacherous troops of Mir Jafar to make 
them keep their distance. By five o'clock the whole 
army of Siraj-ud-DauIa was in full retreat, the brave 
band of Frenchmen in the centre standing firm until 
Clive drove them from their position and captured 
their guns. The Viceroy fled, leaving behind his 
wealth, baggage, cattle, elephants, and artillery, and 
five hundred of his troops dead and wounded on the 
field. 

After the battle of Plassey > in which the English 
lost seven Europeans and sixteen sepoys, Mir Jafar 
presented himself to receive the reward of his 
treachery. As the English soldiers presented arms 
he started back in alarm at the rattle of the muskets, 
but . his coward heart took courage when Clive 
advanced and saluted him as Viceroy of Bengal, 
Behar, and Orissa. 

At Murshidabad, the capital of the Viceroy, the 
rich merchants and bankers came forward and bowed 
down in lowly supplication before their conquerors, 
praying that their city might be spared the horrors 



102 ROBERT CLIVE. 

of rapine and plunder. To the right and left of CHve 
was stored up the long-accumulated wealth of the 
richest provinces of India. In the treasure-house 
of Siraj-ud-Daula gold and silver were heaped 
high. The custodians came forward and crowned 
Clive's head with jewels. In after years, when he 
was charged before the House of Commons with 
over-greed, he boldly exclaimed, " By God, Mr. 
Chairman, at this moment I stand astonished at 
my own moderation ! " 

For the Company he claimed the right to hold all 
the lands south of Calcutta, 882 square miles, on 
payment of the usual rent. He claimed a sum of 
10,000,000 rupees as compensation for previous losses 
and for the expenses of the campaign. For those 
who had suffered during the capture of Calcutta by 
Siraj-ud-Daula he claimed 8,000,000 rupees. For the 
army 2,500,000 rupees, for the navy 2,500,000 rupees, 
and other large sums for the Governor and Select 
Committee at Calcutta. For himself he demanded 
besides 280,000 rupees as Member of the Committee, 
200,000 rupees as Commander-in-Chief, and r, 600,000 
rupees as a private donation — in all, 2,080,000 rupees. 
Be it remembered that at the time when these awards 
were made the rupee was worth two shillings and 
sixpence. 

Mir J afar, who had put Siraj-ud-Daula cruelly to 
death, was left to raise these sums from his subjects 
as best he could. The result was a rebellion, to quell 
which Clive was called on for aid, and in return 
received further rights for the Company. It was not 
long before the new Viceroy had again to plead for 



DUTCH AND FRENCH. IO3 

the assistance of the Company's troops in repelling a 
threatened invasion of his dominions by the son of 
the Emperor of Delhi and the Nawab Wazir of Oudh. 
In return Clive was granted a right to retain in his 
own hands the rent of the lands south of Calcutta 
which, according to the agreement after Plassey, had 
been annually paid by the English to the Viceroy. 
By this agreement Clive virtually became landlord to 
the East India Company. The amount, some ^"30,000 
yearly, was paid to him from 1765 until his death in 
1774, when the right to collect and keep the rent 
passed to the Company. 

The supremacy of the Company firmly established 
in Bengal, the richest province in India, needed 
but to be maintained and supported by the care- 
ful husbanding of the resources and revenues of 
the newly-acquired lands, so that it might finally 
grow powerful enough to triumph over all rivals. The 
Dutch still had their settlement at Chinsurah, twenty 
miles above Calcutta, and in the Deccan the French 
under Bussy supported the Nizam, or Viceroy, Salabat 
Jang, the revenues of the " Northern Circars," or 
districts of Ganjam, Vizagapatam, Godavari, and 
Kistna, some seventeen thousand square miles in 
extent, having been assigned to them for the main- 
tenance of their troops. 

On Bussy being summoned south for the purpose 
of joining in a French attack on Madras, Clive 
entered into an alliance with the local Raja of 
Vizianagram, and sent a force under Colonel Forde, 
to the Northern Circars. Masulipatam fell, position 
after position was speedily captured, and the French 



104 ROBERT CLIV-E. 

driven out of the Northern Circars and deprived of 
their main source of revenue. 

The Dutch at Chinsurah, finding Clive's forces 
weakened by the absence of Forde and his ^troops, 
demanded that their ships should be allowed to pass 
Calcutta without being searched and placed under 
the charge of an English pilot as was the custom, 
and that the trade in saltpetre, then kept exclusively 
in the hands of the English Company, should be 
thrown open. Receiving no satisfactory reply to 
their demands, the Dutch openly declared war by 
capturing some English ships in the river. Clive at 
once collected together a body of armed volunteers, 
hastily recalled Forde from the Northern Circars, 
while Admiral Cornish, with three men-of-war, sailed 
up the river, and destroyed six of the Dutch ships, 
the last of the squadron being captured at the mouth 
of the river. As soon as Colonel Forde reached 
Calcutta he marched out with 320 Europeans, 800 
sepoys, and 50 European volunteers. At Biderra, 
near Chinsurah, he found himself opposed by a Dutch 
force of 700 Europeans and 800 Malays. Seeing the 
force assembled against him he wrote to Clive for 
advice. Clive, who was playing whist, sent back a 
hurried message in pencil, " Dear Forde, fight them 
immediately, I will send you the order in Council to- 
morrow." Forde fought on November 25, 1759, only 
50 Dutch and 250 Malays escaped, and the struggle 
by the Dutch for supremacy in India was ended. 

The French were now alone left to struggle for a 
short time longer against the growing power of the 
English. 



LALLY. I05 

Fort St. David had fallen before Count Lally, 
Baron de Tollendal. Madras held out, though closely 
invested by the French troops from December, 1758, 
to February, 1759. Enraged at the long resistance, 
out of patience with the incompetence and ignorance 
of his officers, the overbearing and haughty spirit of 
Lally at length broke forth. He threatened to har- 
ness the members of the Council at Pondicherry to 
his waggons when they delayed in sending him sup- 
plies or money. Knowing nothing of the country, 
he rejected with contempt the advice, founded on long 
experience, of Bussy, estranging all by his hot temper 
and hasty measures. Ignorant of the ways of the 
people of India, and caring nothing for their offended 
pride, he drove the high caste merchants and 
Brahmans to carry on menial works in his camp. 
By February, 1759, his supplies had almost failed, 
his native troops were fast deserting, and his Euro- 
pean soldiers making overtures to join the enemy, 
so when the English fleet under Admiral Pocock 
appeared in sight he was reluctantly obliged to raise 
the siege of Madras, leave behind him his sick and 
wounded, his artillery and ammunition, and retire to 
Pondicherry, where the news of his failure was 
received with unconcealed joy. 

In September of the same year the French 
Admiral Comte d'Ache, with eleven ships of the 
line, after two hours' cannonade with the English 
fleet of nine ships under Admiral Pocock, finally 
sailed away from the coast, leaving Lally to his fate, 
an abandonment in the words of Captain Mahan, 
"which necessarily led to the fall of the French 



Io6 ROBERT CLIVE. 

power in India, never again to rise." In January, 
1760, Count Lally was finally defeated by Eyre 
Coote at the battle of Wandewash ; Bussy was taken 
prisoner, the French retreating to Pondicherry, which 
capitulated in January of the next year. 

Uupleix and La Bourdonnais had been already 
sacrificed as a reward for their endeavours to work 
out a future for their country in the East ; now Lally 
the brave, the impetuous hero of many a fight, 
thanked on the field of battle by Marshal Saxe, and 
rewarded by Louis XV. with a colonelcy in the Irish 
Brigade of Dillon, was to fall the last victim. Sent 
to accomplish a task, impossible so long as the French 
power was not secured on the seas, in European as 
well as Eastern waters, he failed, as Dupleix and 
La Bourdonnais had failed, and for his failure, on 
returning to France, was thrown into the Bastille, con- 
victed of having betrayed the interests of his king 
"and as a reward for 35 years' service," as he 
bitterly moaned, brought forth gagged and bound, 
driven on a cart used for refuse, to the Place de 
Greve, where he was executed. 

Through all these contests Clive had the sea-power 
of England to support him. With unerring insight 
he had turned from the south, where no advance into 
the heart of India was possible, and firmly established 
the British power in the rich, alluvial tracts of Bengal 
amid a tame and law-abiding populace, where the 
Company might in peace consolidate its strength, 
make surer its foothold, and slowly, at its own chosen 
time, advance further and further, each step being 
secured before the next was attempted, until finally 



CLIVE LEAVES BENGAL. \Oj 

their power had crept all over the land, up the Ganges 
to Benares, further on to the Himalayas, gaining 
wealth, power, and strength, to raise armies to subdue 
the south and west, plant the British standard by 
the Indus, sweep in the garnered wealth of Oudh, 
and then hand over the dominions and trade its 
servants had won and fostered to the safe-keeping of 
the Queen-Empress. 

On the 25th of February, 1760, at the age of thirty- 
five, Clive sailed for England, where he received from 
George III. an Irish Peerage as Lord Clive, Baron 
Plassey, as a reward for the services he had rendered 
to his country, for, in the words of Earl Stanhope, 
" Whatever gratitude Spain owes to her Cortes, or 
Portugal to her Albuquerque, this — and in its results 
more than this — is due from England to Clive. Had 
he never been born, I do not believe that we should — 
at least in that generation — have conquered Hindoo- 
stan ; had he lived longer, I doubt if we should — at 
least in that generation — have lost North America." 

Clive remained in England, and the Government 
of Bengal passed into the hands of Mr. Vansittart. 
The French were still fighting in the south. The 
sums Mir Jafar had agreed to pay after the battle of 
Plassey had not been fully paid, and the money was 
wanted. English writers on ^5 a year, factors on 
^"15 a year, junior and senior merchants on ^30 and 
,£40 a year, a president on ^300 a year, his coun- 
sellors on from £\o to £100, were engaged in trade, 
all determined, more or less, to make a speedy 
fortune and return to England, while the army was 
growing, and the pay of the soldiers in arrears. Some 



108 ROBERT CLIVE. 

method to meet the growing expenses had to be 
found. Accordingly Mr. Vansittart wrote to the 
Court of Proprietors that in consequence of " the 
general confusion and disaffection of the country, and 
the very low state of the Company's treasury, one or 
other of these resolutions was immediately necessary 
— either to drop our connexions with the country 
Government and withdraw our assistance : or to 
insist on more ample as well as more certain provision 
for the support of the Company's expense." 

The Viceroy was old, said to be debauched and 
indolent, while his son-in-law, Mir Muhammed Kasim 
bid high for the post. In the dead of night, Mir Jafar 
was removed and Mir Kasim installed on condition 
that he should pay the arrears due to the Company, 
.grant the revenues of Bardwan, Midnapur, and 
Chittagong, and 50 lakhs of rupees towards the 
expenses of the war in the south. The Governor, 
Mr. Vansittart, was to receive ^30,000, Mr. Holwell, 
^27,000, others sums of ^25,000, ^20,000, and 
.£13,000. The revenues of the whole of Bengal were 
now in the hands of the servants of the Company. 
Having the right of free passage, without payment of 
tax or toll, for the inland produce, in which they 
traded, they commenced for a consideration to 
smuggle the goods of native traders ; they even 
forced the villagers to buy and sell at prices fixed 
by themselves. 

The new Viceroy daily became more alarmed. 
Unable to obtain redress, and unwilling to allow the 
power to pass from his hands without a struggle, he 
commenced to prepare for war, now inevitable, by 



MALADMINISTRA TION. 1 09 

organising his troops under two soldiers of fortune, 
Reinhardt an Alsatian, and Markar an Armenian. 
When two ships from Calcutta appeared at Mungir 
carrying arms for the English troops at Patna, he 
detained the ships and placed the officers in charge 
under guard. Mr. Ellis, the English Governor, re- 
torted by seizing the city. The Viceroy's troops 
under Reinhardt and Markar came to the rescue. 
Ellis and his followers were hemmed in, cap- 
tured and placed in imprisonment. War was at 
once proclaimed. Mir Kasim's forces were defeated 
by Major John Adams at Katwa and Gheria, forty 
thousand of them being driven back with fearful 
slaughter from the fortress at the gorge of Undwa 
Nala. Mir Kasim, incensed at the success of the 
Company, gave orders that Mr. Ellis and the 
prisoners should be instantly executed. On the 
5th of October, 1763, Walter Reinhardt, sur- 
named Sambre by his companions, and Samru by 
the natives, forced two companies of his sepoys 
to carry out the order, and Ellis, with two 
hundred unarmed men, women, and children, were 
foully massacred. Patna was soon afterwards cap- 
tured by Major Adams ; but Mir Kasim escaping, 
under the escort of Samru, sought protection in 
Allahabad with Shuja-ud-Daula, Nawab Wazir of 
Oudh, where the Emperor, Shah Alam, driven from 
Delhi by the Afghans, had also taken refuge. 
Between the three, an alliance offensive and de- 
fensive against the English was entered into, and 
with fifty thousand followers they advanced to 
Baksar near Patna. From here Mir Kasim was 



110 ROBERT CLIVE. 

driven forth by his allies, weary of his cowardice 
and inability to raise the funds he had promised 
towards the expenses of the war. He died soon 
afterwards in abject poverty. 

Hector Munro, having with prompt and unrelent- 
ing severity quelled the first Sepoy Mutiny in India 
by blowing from the guns twenty-four of his mutinous 
troops, advanced against the allied forces whom he 
defeated with terrible slaughter in the decisive battle 
of Baksar on the 23rd of October, 1764. 

Benares immediately surrendered, and Allahabad 
capitulated to Sir Robert Fletcher, leaving the Nawab 
Wazir of Oudh, deserted by Samru, no alternative 
but to sue for peace on terms to be dictated by the 
English. The result of this decisive victory, second 
only to Plassey,was fully recognised by Clive, who wrote 
to Pitt, in 1766, "It is scarcely hyperbole to say, to- 
morrow the whole Mogul Empire is in our power." 
Mir Jafar, again installed as viceroy, died soon after- 
wards, and left a legacy of 5 lakhs of rupees to Clive, 
who handed the amount over to the treasury at 
Calcutta to form a fund for the relief of officers and 
soldiers invalided or disabled during service, as well as 
for widows of officers and soldiers dying on service — 
a fund known for over a century as " Lord Clive's 
Fund," which reverted to the heirs of Clive when 
India was transferred from the East India Company 
to the Crown. 

On the death of the Viceroy, Mr. Vansittart and his 
Council, in direct contravention of a recent order from 
the Court of Directors prohibiting their servants from 
receiving any presents, installed the illegitimate son of 



CLIVE RESTORES ORDER. I I I 

Mir Kasim on receiving a sum of 10 lakhs of rupees 
to be divided among them as they should elect. 

The Court of Directors in London was now 
thoroughly alarmed at these arbitrary proceedings of 
the Calcutta Council, as well as at the rapacity and 
private trade of their servants which threatened 
financial ruin to the Company's own affairs. They 
accordingly wrote to the Governor of Bengal : " One 
grand source of the disputes, misunderstandings, and 
difficulties which have occurred with the Country 
Government appears evidently to have taken its rise 
from the unwarrantable and licentious manner of 
carrying on private trade of the Company's servants. 
... In order, therefore, to remedy all these disorders, 
we do hereby positively order and direct, — That from 
the receipt of this letter, a final and effectual end be 
forthwith put to the Inland Trade in Salt, beetle nut 
and tobacco, and all other articles whatsoever produced 
and consumed in the Country." 

Fearing that this order would not be effectually 
carried out, the Court of Directors supplemented it 
in 1764 by praying Clive to proceed to India and 
place their affairs in order. This determination was 
conveyed to the Council at Bengal in the following 
words : — " The General Court of Proprietors having, 
on account of the critical situation of the Company's 
affairs in Bengal, requested Lord Clive to take upon 
him the station of President, and the Command of the 
Company's Military forces there, his Lordship has 
been appointed President and Governor accordingly." 

Clive landed at Calcutta on the 3rd of May, 1765, 
having full power to act with a Select Committee of 



112 ROBERT CLIVE. 

four members independent of the Bengal Council. 
When one member of the old Council, Mr. Johnstone, 
ventured to ask some questions respecting the new 
power of the committee, Clive, as he himself writes, 
haughtily asked him " if he would dare to dispute our 
authority? Mr. Johnstone replied, that he never had 
the least intention of doing such a thing ; upon which 
there was an appearance of very long and pale 
countenances, and not one of the Council uttered 
another syllable." 

Within two days of Clive's arrival every act of the 
Council, especially their indecent haste in installing a 
new Viceroy, and their reception of presents, had been 
censured by Clive, who sums up his judgment on 
their procedure by writing, "Alas! how is the English 
name sunk ! I could not avoid paying the tribute of 
a few tears to the departed and lost fame of the 
British Nation (irrecoverably so, I fear)." 

Clive landed on Tuesday ; the following Monday 
the Select Committee directed that a covenant not 
to take bribes or presents for the future should be 
signed by all Members of Council, and by all the 
Company's servants, who, as Clive writes, " after 
many idle and evasive arguments, and being given 
to understand that they must either sign or be 
suspended the service, executed the covenants 
upon the spot." Soon after Clive was able to write 
respecting the future of the Company's affairs in 
India, and his words are as applicable to-day as 
they were then : " I am persuaded that nothing can 
prove fatal, but a renewal of licentiousness among 
your servants here, or intestine divisions among 
yourselves at home." 



REFORMS. 1 1 3 

How far the general corruption and laxity had 
spread during his absence may be judged from one 
of his letters home, in which he declares, "I fear the 
Military as well as Civil are so far gone in luxury 
and debauchery, that it will require the utmost 
exertion of our united Committee to save the 
Company from destruction." 

Noteworthy are his words as he viewed with alarm 
the position which he was sent out to face : " If ideas 
of conquest were to be the rule of our conduct, I 
foresee that we should by necessity be led from 
acquisition to acquisition until we had the whole 
Empire up in arms against us." He dwells carefully 
on the great danger that may arise if once the 
natives throw off their " natural indolence," combined 
to carry on a " war against us in a much more 
soldierly manner than they ever thought of." 

Having placed the internal affairs of the Company 
on a firm basis, Clive proceeded to conclude peace 
with the Nawab Wazir of Oudh, for, at that period, 
he conceived it essential, as he wrote, " to conciliate 
the affections of the country powers, to remove any 
jealousy they may entertain of our unbounded 
ambition, and to convince them that we aim not 
at conquest and dominion, but security in carrying 
on a free trade." 

The territories of the Nawab Wazir of Oudh were 
restored on his paying half a million sterling for the 
expenses of the war. Allahabad and Kora, yielding 
a revenue of 2,800,000 rupees yearly, were retained 
and given to the Emperor Shah Alam in exchange 
for the perpetual right, or Diwanship, over the entire 

9 



114 ROBERT CLIVE. 

revenues of Bengal, Behar, Orissa, and the Northern 
Circars, the Emperor receiving in exchange an 
annual tribute of ,£260,000, and the new Viceroy an 
annual allowance of ,£600,000 wherewith to pay his 
dancing girls. The collection of the revenues in 
these districts was left in the hands of the native 
agents, for, as the Directors wrote, they were aware 
" how unfit an Englishman is to conduct the collection 
of revenues and to follow the subtle native thought, 
all his art is to conceal the real value of his country, 
to perplex and elude the payment." By this arrange- 
ment Bengal, Behar, and Orissa virtually became 
the property of the Company — a property likely, in 
the opinion of Clive, to yield a yearly revenue of two 
millions sterling. The acquisition, in fact, exceeded 
everything that could have been conceived by the 
wildest imagination of Dupleix and in the words of 
Clive, " To go further is, in my opinion, a scheme so 
extravagantly ambitious, that no Governor and Council 
in their senses can accept it unless the whole system 
of the Company's interests be first entirely new 
remodelled." 

As a barrier between the limits of the Company's 
territories and the north of India, the puppet 
sovereign of Oudh was left in power, while the 
Emperor held the strong fortress of Allahabad, to 
keep in check all Maratha and Pathan invaders. 
Nothing remained for the Company but to consolidate 
their position, secure themselves in their own pos- 
sessions, conciliate the natives, train, discipline, and 
augment their army, hoard their resources, and be 
prepared for what the future might bring forth. 



DISCONTENT. 1 1 5 

In order to carry out the policy of the Directors, 
Clive reorganised the entire system of the inland 
trade. The sale of salt had been virtually monopo- 
lised by the Company's servants, who paid neither 
duty nor toll, or at most a small one of 2J 
per cent. That this was a lucrative business may 
be seen from the fact that with good management 
it paid over 200 per cent, on the capital ex- 
pended. It was, however, declared illegal as well as 
the trade in betel nut, tobacco, and all articles not 
intended for import or export. Some effort at 
compensation, to the senior military and civil officers, 
was made by Clive, who formed a fund to carry on 
the trade under public management in the profits of 
which they were to participate in fixed proportions 
according to their rank — a system, however, not finally 
approved of by the Directors. 

This measure, and the curtailment of a special 
allowance made to military officers when on active 
service or away from headquarters — a privilege en- 
joyed since the days of Plassey — resulted in open 
mutiny, two hundred officers threatening to resign 
their commissions on the same day unless this 
allowance was restored. 

Sir Robert Fletcher, Commandant at Mungir, 
secretly encouraged the movement, while the civil 
officers at Calcutta subscribed a sum of ;£ 16,000 for 
the benefit of any officers who might be cashiered. 

Clive was not to be intimidated in his efforts to 
carry out the Directors' instructions. Sir Robert 
Fletcher was cashiered, new officers were ordered 
up from Madras, those who had combined were tried 



Il6 ROBERT CLIVE. 

by martial law, six were convicted of mutiny, the rest 
allowed to recall their resignations only on their fully 
recognising that they were permitted to continue in 
the service as an act of extreme grace and favour. 

Clive remained in India one year and a half, 
during which time, in the words of Macaulay, he 
" effected one of the most extensive, difficult and 
salutary reforms that ever was accomplished by any 
statesman." 

His health breaking down he determined to return 
home, notwithstanding that the Directors urged him 
to remain, for as they wrote : " The general voice 
of the Proprietors, indeed, we may say, of every man, 
will be to join in our request, that your Lordship will 
continue another year in India," their opinion being : 
" Your own example has been the principal means 
of restraining the general rapaciousness and corrup- 
tion which had brought our affairs so near the brink 
of ruin." 

Clive, however, could not be induced to remain. 
He left India finally on the 29th of January, 1767, 
at a time when, in consequence of brilliant hopes 
held out for the future trade of the Company, the 
price of Stock had gone up to 263, and the dividends 
had risen from 6 to 10, and even to 12J per cent. 

In 1698 the Company had advanced to the Crown 
two millions sterling at 8 per cent, interest; in 1 702, 
one million ; in 1730, four millions sterling without 
interest; in 1744, on extension of their Charter, one 
million sterling at 3 per cent; so that by 1758 a 
total debt of ^"4,200,000 at 3 per cent, was owed 
them, while, on the other hand, they had to pay 



PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY. I If 

£400,000 to the Exchequer yearly, on account of the 
revenue derived from their newly acquired position in 
India. 

These fair hopes of prosperity, however, did not 
last long. In the south of India Haidar All had 
risen to power, extended his kingdom of Mysore as 
far north as the Kistna, established a maritime force 
on the west coast at Mangalore, and by 1769 had 
ravaged the country round Madras up to St. Thomas' 
Mount, impoverishing the Madras Government. 

In 1770 Bengal was devastated by a fearful famine 
during the course of which one-third to one-half of 
its inhabitants died, the trade becoming totally dis- 
organised, and the revenues remaining uncollected. 

By 1773 the Company were virtually bankrupt. 
Although their shares paid a dividend of 6 per cent, 
the year before, they had been obliged to borrow to 
the extent of ,£1,290,000, their Capital Stock, amount- 
ing to £"4,000,000, being represented by effects and 
credits in England, China, India, St. Helena, and on 
the sea, by a sum of £"2,930,658 10s. iod. 

An application to the Government for a loan of 
£"1,000,000 to enable them to carry on their business 
led to an inquiry into the whole affairs of the Com- 
pany, and an impeachment of Clive's administration, 
particularly his dealings with Siraj-ud-Daula and Mir 
J afar. 

As a result it was ruled by the Commons that all 
the acquisitions made by military force in India, or 
acquired by treaty with foreign powers, did by right 
belong to the State, while, with regard to Clive, they 
left the question unvoted on as to whether or not he 



I I 8 ROBERT CLIVE. 

had " abused the power with which he was entrusted, 
to the evil example of the servants of the public, and 
to the dishonour and detriment of the State," con- 
tenting themselves with passing a resolution that 
" Robert, Lord Clive, did render great and meritorious 
services to his country " — a resolution which did little 
to soothe the worn-out spirit of the victor of Plassey, 
who died by his own hand, after great physical 
suffering, at his house in Berkeley Square in 1774. 

The Company was released from the annual pay- 
ment of the ^400,000, it was lent ;£i, 500,000 for 
four years, being, however, debarred from declaring 
a dividend of more than 6 per cent, on their business 
jll the loan was repaid. Lord North's Regulating 
Act of 1773 at the same time definitely established 
Parliamentary control over the whole affairs of the 
Company. Copies of all papers respecting civil or 
military affairs in India were to be sent to the 
Secretaries of State and Lords of the Treasury 
within fourteen days of receipt. The Governor- 
General in India was to be nominated by Parliament, 
he was to hold office for five years, and to have a 
casting vote in a new Council of four members. A 
Supreme Court of Justice was established for Cal- 
cutta, with a Chief Justice and four Puisne Judges, 
who, with the aid of a jury of British subjects, were 
to try all offences except petty trade disputes, which 
were left to the former, or Mayor's, Court. 

The first Council appointed under the Act con- 
sisted of Richard Barwell, General Clavering, the 
Hon. Colonel Monson, and Philip Francis, the first 
Governor-General being Warren Hastings. 



VI. 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



No Governor-General of India has ever been called 
on to undertake a task more complex in all its details 
than that undertaken by Warren Hastings when he 
was summoned by the Directors of the East India 
Company to assume charge of their affairs in Bengal. 
No Governor-General has had more difficulties to 
encounter, not only from opposition in his own 
Council Chamber, but also from those at home whom 
he served, and from whom he might have hoped for 
encouragement and some amount of loyal support ; 
no Governor-General has been so traduced, maligned, 
and misrepresented by those whose enmity he had 
roused by thwarting their self-interested intrigues or 
by an exposure of their frauds and incapacities, as 
well as by those who had full opportunities of 
judging the full value of his public services, but 
who deemed it well to sacrifice him for private or 
party purposes. 

Recent impartial and judicial research has done 
much to clear the character of Hastings from many 
wildly reckless and even false charges. Still, no sober 



119 



120 WARREN HASTINGS, 

inquiries or calm decisions will ever blot away the 
memory of the words of impassioned eloquence and 
dramatic force with which nearly every official action 
of his life was denounced by the greatest orators of 
his time, who used all their unrivalled powers to 
impress the imagination of their audience with the 
enormity of the offences charged against him by 
the malice of his enemies. 

Of Hastings it can be truly said that all he accom- 
plished — and it was much — was done because he saw, 
with a foresight vouchsafed only to a genius such as 
his, what the interests of the Company, and those of 
his country, demanded for the extension of commerce 
and the firm establishment of the British rule in the 
East whereon that commerce could alone be based. 

Arriving in India at the age of nineteen, in October, 
1750, Hastings, like Clive, was first employed in the 
ordinary clerical duties attached to the office of a writer 
in the East India Company's service. In the year 
1754 he was transferred to the factory at Kasimbazar, 
on the Ganges. There his chief occupation seems to 
have been the making of bargains with the native 
traders for the supply of silk stuffs to be sent home 
to enrich the London merchants. In 1756 happened 
the dire catastrophe of the Black Hole of Calcutta. 
Hastings, in the confusion, escaped from Kasimbazar 
and made his way down the Ganges, joining the 
refugees, and afterwards took part as a volunteer 
in Clive's campaigns. Pathetic as is much in the 
history of Hastings, no more pathetic fact is recorded, 
in all its meagre details, than that his first wife, the 
widow of a Captain Campbell, whom he married in 



EARLY SERVICE. 121 

1756, died in 1759, leaving two children, who did not 
long survive. 

On the return of Clive to England, Hastings, then 
in his twenty-ninth year, was appointed Member of 
Council at Calcutta. In the years of deplorable 
mismanagement which followed, Hastings, in the 
words of Macaulay, " was never charged with having 
borne a share in the worst abuses which ensued, 
and it is almost equally certain that, if he had 
borne a share in those abuses, the able and bitter 
enemies who afterwards persecuted him would not 
have failed to discover and proclaim his guilt." 

After ten years' service in the enervating climate of 
Bengal he returned home with but a comparatively 
small income. His generosity to his relatives and 
financial losses soon left him no option but to apply 
once again to the Court of Directors for employ- 
ment in their service in the East — an application 
at once acceded to, for Hastings had, as the 
Directors recorded in their order appointing him 
second Member of Council at Madras, " served us 
many years upon the Bengal establishment with 
great ability and unblemished character." Borrow- 
ing money wherewith to buy an outfit, he sailed, in 
1769, from Dover, to build anew his fortunes in a 
life of exile in the East. 

On the long voyage out a romantic attachment 
sprang up between him and Mrs. ImhofT, whom he 
afterwards married on a divorce being obtained from 
her husband, a German baron. At Madras, in ad- 
dition to his duties as Member of Council, he acted 
as export warehouse keeper until the year 1772, when 



122 WARREN HASTINGS. 

he was directed to proceed to Calcutta to assume 
charge of the Government, and, if possible, evolve 
order out of the chaos into which the affairs of the 
Company had lapsed. 

From Clive he received a letter of advice, beseech- 
ing him to " be impartial and just to the public, 
regardless of the interest of individuals, where the 
honour of the nation and the real advantage of the 
Company are at stake, and resolute in carrying into 
execution your determination, which I hope will at 
all times be rather founded upon your own opinion 
than that of others," and at the same time " always 
flattering yourself that time and perseverance will 
get the better of everything." 

The problem before Hastings was how to secure 
from attacks by native powers the territories won by 
Clive, how to raise revenue from them sufficient to 
satisfy the expenses of administration, the demands 
of the Directors, as well as the heavy and sudden 
liabilities to be incurred for wars which he knew 
must inevitably occur in the near future. In order 
to effect these objects " it is impossible," as he wrote 
in a letter to Sir George Colebrooke, " to avoid 
errors ; and there are cases ... in which it may 
be necessary to adopt expedients which are not to 
be justified on such principles as the public can be 
judges of." 

A great power had arisen in the west and north 
of India which for a time seemed as though it would 
succeed in founding a Hindu dominion on the ruins 
of the Mughal Empire, and dictate its orders to the 
servants of the Company. The Marathas had from 



MARATHAS. 1 23 

the seventeenth century — when first as predatory- 
bands of raiding and robbing horsemen they were 
led forth annually from their mountain homes lying 
amid the highlands of the west by their great leader 
Sivajf — grown to be an organised force of fighting 
soldiers, who under their chieftains levied contribu- 
tions far and wide over all the rich villages lying 
outside the Company's possessions at Bombay, Cal- 
cutta, and Madras. 

As the successors of Sivaji became weak and 
effeminate their power passed to the hands of their 
astute Brahman ministers, or Peshwas, who fixed 
their headquarters at Poona. At the same time 
successful leaders gathered around themselves bands 
of horsemen who claimed the right to pillage and 
levy contributions over defined districts, all, however, 
rendering a more or less loyal allegiance to the 
Peshwas. Holkar, descendant of a shepherd, assumed 
sovereignty around his capital at Indore. Sindhia, 
whose ancestors were hereditary slipper-bearers to 
the proud Peshwas, established himself in power at 
Gwalior, while Baroda fell to the Gaekwars, and 
Nagpur to the Bhonslas. One final effort to break 
this great rising Hindu nationality and restore the 
sway of the Mughals was made by the Muhammadan 
ruler of Afghanistan, when Ahmad Shah Durani, 
at the head of his Turkoman cavalry, came riding 
through the north-west passes to chastise the idola- 
trous Marathas for their insolence in driving the 
Emperor from Delhi and conquering the neigh- 
bouring lands of the Punjab. 

On the fatal field of Panipat Ahmad Shah Durani 



124 WARREN HASTINGS. 

cut to pieces 200,000 of the light Maratha horsemen, 
slew the bravest of their chieftains, including the son 
and cousin of their Peshwa — or, as the news was 
wailed amid their mountain homes, " Two pearls 
have been dissolved, twenty-seven gold mohurs have 
been lost, and of the silver and copper the total 
cannot be cast up." 

Terrible though the calamity was that had fallen 
on the Marathas, they soon gathered themselves 
together to dispute the sovereignty with the East 
India Company. In 1769 they raided south, de- 
vastating the territories of the fierce Haidar All, 
and by 1771 they had once again in their power 
the Emperor at Delhi, forcing him to surrender to 
them the districts of Kora and Allahabad, handed 
to him in 1765 by Clive, in return for the grant of 
the Governorship over Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. 
In consequence of this defection of the Emperor from 
the side of the English, Hastings not only resumed 
possession of the districts of Kora and Allahabad, 
but withheld the annual tribute of ,£300,000 which 
it had been customary to pay him from the revenues 
of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. 

Hastings, so far as the Company's possessions and 
interests were concerned, had brilliantly succeeded in 
counterplotting the wily Maratha stratagems whereby 
they hoped to rule through the permission of the 
Emperor. He had now to play a bolder game re- 
quiring all the insight his genius could inspire — to 
carry to a successful conclusion. The Company's 
possessions in Bengal, Behar, and Orissa had been 
won by Clive ; it yet remained to place them under 



RO HILL AS. 125 

a firm and wise administration ; it yet remained to 
secure them from all possibility of Maratha invasion, 
so that the Company might have time to secure its 
position and gain strength and power for its ultimate 
expansion. Between the Company's possessions and 
the Marathas it was necessary to build up a strong 
and friendly native state which might receive, and 
if possible break, the first rude shock of an invading 
army. 

To the west of Bengal and Behar lay Oudh, ruled 
by its Nawab Wazir. Beyond Oudh, stretching north- 
east to the Himalayas, lay the land of the Rohillas, 
a fierce race of Pathan warriors who came originally 
from beyond the Indus, conquered the rich, fertile 
plains, and subdued the effete Hindu peasantry. 
With the Rohillas the Marathas had a deadly feud, 
not only because they were of different nationality 
and religion, but because the Rohillas had stood by 
and allowed the Afghans to slaughter the Maratha 
chieftains at Panipat. The Marathas did not wait 
long for vengeance. In 1772 they swarmed down 
on the Rohillas, who were obliged to turn in their 
distress to Shuja-ud-Daula, the Nawab Wazir of 
Oudh, to whom they offered 40 lakhs of rupees if he 
would come to their aid and drive back the maraud- 
ing invaders. With the assistance of the forces from 
Oudh, strengthened by an English brigade under 
Sir Robert Baker, the Marathas were driven from 
Rohilkhand ; but, as might have been expected, 
Hafi'z Rahmat Khan, beloved chief of the Rohillas, 
refused to pay the Nawab Wazir of Oudh the 
promised subsidy of 40 lakhs of rupees. When 



126 WARREN HASTINGS. 

the demand was pressed he threatened to join his 
forces to those of his former foes, the Marathas, 
and raid the territories of Oudh and those of the 
Company. 

Hastings at once summoned the Nawab Wazir to 
meet him at Benares, so that they might concert 
measures for the future defence of their possessions. 
At the meeting which ensued it was decided that the 
Rohillas should be driven from Rohilkhand by a 
united force of Oudh and the Company ; that the 
Nawab Wazir should, after the campaign, take pos- 
session of the outlying districts of Rohilkhand, as 
well as Kora and Allahabad held to have been ceded 
by the Emperor ; and that the Company in return 
should receive the 40 lakhs of rupees, as well as a 
further sum of 210,000 rupees monthly, during the 
time its troops were engaged in the field, for war 
expenses. By the victories of Plassey and Baksar 
Clive won a foothold for the Company in India; 
by this treaty, as Hastings wrote, the Nawab 
Wazir would obtain " a complete compact state shut 
in effectually from the frontiers of Behar to the 
mountains of Thibet, while he would remain equally 
accessible to our forces from the above provinces 
either for hostilities or for protection. It would give 
him wealth, of which we should partake, and give 
him security without any dangerous increase of 
power. It would undoubtedly, by bringing his 
frontier nearer to the Marathas, for whom singly he 
would be no match, render him more dependent on 
us, and cement the union more firmly between us." 

As to the essential morality of these colossal in- 



ROHILLA WAR. \2J 

trigues of Hastings, neither his age nor our age, in a 
compulsory struggle for existence, can judge. The 
same problem, differing in none of its essential details, 
lies before us to-day in our determination to hold our 
possessions in Africa as a field for the outlet of our 
productions, as well as in the consistent efforts of 
Russia to gain seaports in the Mediterranean or in 
the North Pacific, so as to establish a commercial 
prosperity for herself in the future, by means which 
are inevitably destined to end in success. All we are 
concerned with is the fact that Hastings in his deal- 
ings with the native powers had but one main ideal 
before him — that of serving the interests of the East 
India Company, and establishing on a secure basis the 
foundation of the British Empire in India, so that 
the commercial enterprise of the London merchants 
should have its necessary development. If in this 
there be discovered any taint of turpitude, not by 
Hastings alone but by the nation at large must the 
blame be borne. 

Rohilkhand was conquered, Hafi'z Rahmat Khan 
died bravely fighting, along with two thousand of his 
troops, while the remaining Rohillas were sent forth, 
across the Ganges, to seek new settlements for them- 
selves in the districts round Meerut. The usual horrors 
of war accompanied the campaign, but in the pillaging 
and burning of villages which ensued neither did the 
British troops take part nor was Hastings cognisant 
of them. By all means in his power he reprobated 
and sternly suppressed vindictive violence to the 
conquered and oppression of the peaceful Hindu 
peasantry. 



128 WARREN HASTINGS. 

The Company's territories once rendered secure 
from all fear of invasion, their administration was 
inaugurated on a system which in its essential details 
has lasted down to our own days. Up to the time 
of Hastings the administration of Bengal, Behar, 
and Orissa, and the collection of the land revenue 
had been left in the hands of the native officials, Mu- 
hammad Raza Khan being placed in charge of Bengal, 
and Shitab Rai — a brave soldier who had fought 
for the Company during the outbreak at Patna — 
in charge of the local government at Behar. Rumours 
had, however, reached the Court of Directors that the 
revenues were being misappropriated by these two 
officials and their native subordinates. The care of 
their revenues, as well as their trade, had now become 
a matter of vital importance to the London merchants, 
who accordingly sent notice to Hastings that they 
deemed it full time " to take upon themselves, by 
the agency of their own servants, the entire con- 
trol and administration of the revenues." The govern- 
ment was to be directed from Calcutta, English 
officials were to proceed to the local headquarters 
and, aided by the subordinate native officers, com- 
mence as collectors, the administration and collec- 
tion of the land revenues, Muhammad Raza Khan 
and Shitab Rai were to be removed from their 
posts, sent to Calcutta, and there tried for peculation 
and past misdeeds. This change from native to Euro- 
pean supervision over the collection of the revenues, 
one sooner or later inevitable, was primarily due to 
the intrigues of a Brahman of high caste and ancient 
lineage. He, Nanda Kumar, had blazoned forth the 






NANDA KUMAR. 1 29 

alleged peculations and maladministration of Mu- 
hammad Raza Khan and Shitab Rai, hoping that by 
their downfall he would rise to power, and be placed 
in supreme revenue control. Ever has the cunning 
of a Brahman swayed the councils of rulers and 
princes in India, but now for the first time in history 
the astute Brahman's intrigues had travelled beyond 
the land of his birth, and worked their way among the 
simple London merchants. In vain Hastings told the 
Court of Directors that "From the year 1759 to 
the time when I left Bengal in 1764, I was engaged 
in a continued opposition to the interests and designs 
of that man, because I judged him to be adverse to 
the welfare of my employers." By the Directors 
Hastings was exhorted to listen to the words of 
their trusted adviser, Nanda Kumar, and bring Mu- 
hammad Raza Khan and Shitab Rai to trial. 

Knowing well that the mind of a Brahman is like a 
mirror in which only the face of the fool who looks 
therein is reflected, Hastings, who could read all 
events and all the ways of men, bowed his head and 
ventured no further to tell the Directors how Nanda 
Kumar had deceived them. His loyal obedience to 
the dictates of the Directors was received by them 
with extreme gratification, for, as they wrote, it was 
"a great satisfaction to find that you could at once 
determine to suppress all penal resentment when the 
public welfare seemed to clash with your private 
sentiment with regard to Nundcoomar." 

Muhammad Raza Khan and Shitab Rai were 
arrested, tried, and acquitted of the charges brought 
against them. Nanda Kumar was left brooding in 

10 



I30 WARREN HASTINGS. 

silent rage over his thwarted plans, for the men he 
sought to ruin had been declared innocent of the 
charges brought against them, and their offices given 
to English officials. To him one concession was made. 
His son, Raja Gurdas, was appointed manager to the 
affairs of the minor Viceroy of Bengal, whose guar- 
dian was the Manni Begam, widow of the late Vice- 
roy. Nanda Kumar remained silent, hoping that the 
power of a Brahman could in time work all things to 
his will. 

Three of the new Council appointed under the 
Regulating Act of Lord North arrived in India, and 
Hastings became the first Governor-General with a 
yearly salary of ^"25,000. General Clavering, Colonel 
Monson, and Philip Francis, all men of strong pre- 
judices, and totally unacquainted with the ways of 
India, came to aid Hastings with advice, while 
Sir Elijah Impey and three judges were to form 
a new Court of Justice. The fourth Member of 
Council, Mr. Richard Barwell, was already a member 
of the Government of Bengal. 

It cannot fairly be said that Philip Francis, the 
most remarkable among the newly landed councillors, 
is the most contemptible character in Indian history, 
for India is a land in which intrigue and slow-witted 
cunning have given scope for the talents of many men 
more ignoble than Francis. If he had remained in 
England he might probably in those scurrilous days 
have risen to some position of despicable notoriety. 
If he were not Junius he was capable of being a 
Junius. His character is summed up by Macaulay: 
"He must also have been a man in the highest degree 



PHILIP FRANCIS, 131 

arrogant and insolent, a man prone to malevolence, 
and prone to the error of mistaking his malevolence 
for public virtue." 

But a character such as his was doomed to failure 
in India, though unfortunately it found full scope 
in venting its malevolence in after days against 
Hastings in England. Such a character is common 
in the East. It could be read by the natives and by 
Hastings who was saturated with Oriental feelings, 
just as a learned man reads a book written in a 
language to him well known. 

The three new Members of Council, headed by 
Philip Francis, commenced on their arrival a sys- 
tematic, hostile investigation into the past adminis- 
tration of Hastings. The Treaty of Benares was 
condemned, the Rohilla war declared unjust, and 
the mode in which it had been carried on denounced 
as sanguinary and vindictive. The newly appointed 
agent at Lucknow was removed, the troops recalled 
from Rohilkhand, and the Nawab Wazir ordered 
to pay up all the arrears due to the Company under 
the treaty. On the death of the Nawab Wazir, on 
the 6th of February, 1775, the majority of the Council 
forced on the young Nawab Wazir, Asaf-ud-Daula, 
a new treaty. A sum of one crore and a half of 
rupees was to be paid at once on account of the 
arrears due by the State, an increased monthly 
subsidy of 50,000 rupees was demanded for the pay 
of the Company's troops quartered in Oudh, while the 
revenue from the territories surrounding Benares was 
annexed by the Company to whom the Raja of 
Benares, Chait Singh, became feudatory, 



I32 WARREN HASTINGS. 

The news went forth among the natives that 
Hastings was no longer supreme ; that his power had 
been usurped by agents of the Company sent from 
England to depose him. Nanda Kumar at the 
same time took note that Philip Francis was eager 
to gain the Governor-Generalship, and more than 
willing to listen to any lying words that would aid 
him in ruining Hastings. 

On the nth of March, 1775, Francis appeared 
before the Council, and presented a letter from 
Nanda Kumar, accusing Hastings of having re- 
ceived bribes of £100,000 and £40,000 from Mu- 
hammad Raza Khan and Shitab Rai for releas- 
ing them from the charges of embezzlement and 
malpractices. In the same letter Hastings was 
further charged with having received bribes of 3 
lakhs and 54,000 rupees from the writer, Nanda 
Kumar, and from the Manni Begam for the appoint- 
ments of Nanda Kumar's son and the Manni Begam 
to the Viceroy's establishment. Hastings having pro- 
tested at the insult offered to him at his own Council 
table, withdrew with indignation, and was followed 
by his sole supporter, Richard Barwell. An inquiry 
was held by the remaining three ; Nanda Kumar was 
examined, the documents were impounded, and the 
entire evidence submitted to the judges, by whom it 
was sent home to the Directors. The evidence 
remained unnoticed till the famous trial of Hastings 
ten years afterwards, when it was produced in support 
of the seventh article of impeachment of which 
he was found not guilty. 

Nanda Kumar might well tremble when he found 



TRIAL OF NAN DA KUMAR. I 33 

that his cunning could not compass the downfall of 
the Governor-General. He himself had been guilty 
of forgery, a forgery of a bond purporting to be the 
acknowledgment of a debt due by a Hindu banker, 
on whose death in 1769 he had presented the forged 
bond, and been paid the money mentioned therein. 
The bond, torn to show that it had been paid and 
cancelled, was filed in the Mayor's Court. To many 
the secret of this forgery was known, but it had 
been found impossible to get possession of the docu- 
ment from the Mayor's Court. At length, after more 
than a year's efforts the document was surrendered 
in April, 1775, and Nanda Kumar was arrested on a 
charge of forgery. He was tried by the Chief 
Justice,' three puisne judges, and an English jury. 
The trial lasted seven days, and, according to Sir 
James Stephen, who exhaustively examined the 
whole of the evidence, " no man ever had, or could 
have, a fairer trial." Nanda Kumar was found guilty 
and sentenced to be hanged. In vain he looked 
round for help. In vain he prayed Francis to inter- 
vene, and save from pollution the sacred body of a 
Brahman, so that " I shall not accuse you in the day 
of judgment of neglecting to assist me in the ex- 
tremity I am now in." Francis knew too well there 
was no hope for his former ally. Of Nanda Kumar's 
guilt there could be no doubt. Justice, stern and 
unrelenting, must be meted out, equally to high caste 
Brahman and to low caste worker with his hands. 

Nanda Kumar was hanged before his own people 
on the 5 th of August, 1775, and as Francis wrote, 
"After the death of Nundcoomar, the Governor, I 



134 WARREN HASTINGS. 

believe, is well assured that no man who regards his 
own safety will venture to stand forth as his accuser." 

The death of Colonel Monson in September, 1776, 
left Hastings, with the vote of Barwell, strong enough 
in the Council to revoke a resignation he had sent 
home some time previously, while the death of 
Clavering, in August, 1777, set him free to carry out 
a line of consistent policy towards the native states, 
the true bearings and tendencies of which he alone 
could understand. 

Dangers which threatened the very existence of 
the newly founded British Empire in India were now 
crowding in from all sides. 

In 1773, when the English Parliament lent the 
East India Company the sum of ;£i, 500,000 in order 
to save the credit of the Directors, it became necessary 
that Lord North should devise some means whereby 
the Company might in time repay the loan. The 
Company at that time had 17,000,000 pounds of tea 
lying unsold in its warehouses. This tea was liable 
to a duty of 25 per cent, on exportation. In order to 
assist the Company in selling this tea the export duty 
was remitted, and in its place a duty of 3 per 
cent, exacted on its sale in America. The tea was 
thrown into Boston Harbour, and on the 4th of 
July, 1776, the "Declaration of Independence" was 
issued by Congress, the thirteen colonies throwing off 
their allegiance to England. 

The news soon reached India that General Bur- 
goyne and 5,000 English troops had, on the 17th of 
October, 1777, surrendered to General Gates at Sara- 
toga, news, followed, a month later, by the intelligence 



THE DUEL. 135 

that France had declared war against England. Not 
only was France to be dreaded in the Eastern seas, 
but the armies of the Marathas were threatening 
Bengal, and the Nizam and Haidar All were preparing 
to crush the English in the Deccan and in the south. 
Hastings had to be prepared to meet these dangers, 
and to find means for defraying all the expenditure 
and extraordinary outlay that would necessarily have 
to be incurred. As he wrote at the time, " If it be 
really true that the British troops and influence have 
suffered so severe a check in the Western world, it is 
the more incumbent on those who are charged with 
the interest of Great Britain in the East to exert 
themselves for the retrieval of the national losses." 

Francis, " mistaking his own malevolence for public 
virtue" still opposed, still demanded explanations, 
still wrote long minutes in order to expose what he 
considered the weakness, dishonesty, or impolicy of 
all Hastings' preparations for the coming struggle. 
Believing in a promise of neutrality held out by 
Francis, Hastings had allowed his friend Barwell to 
leave India, and now, to his astonishment, found the 
opposition of Francis more aggressive than ever. 
His slow wrath at last burst forth. In a letter to 
Francis he charged him with being guilty both in 
his private and public life of conduct " devoid of truth 
and honour." 

A duel ensued ; Francis received a bullet in his 
side, and soon after, on the 17th of August, 1780, 
deemed it advisable to leave India for England, there 
to carry on his rancorous opposition to the policy of 
the Governor-General. 




WARREN HASTINGS. 

(From "Memoirs by Warren Hastings, 1786.") 



CHAIT SINGH. I 37 

In India Hastings was now unfettered ; he but 
needed funds for the pressing public necessities. 
Chait Singh, Raja of Benares, had become feudatory 
to the Company, undoubtedly bound to render, in 
addition to his annual tribute of 22 lakhs of rupees, 
service and aid in case of war. The time had come 
when he should join in the general defence of the 
ruling power, so Hastings called on him to pay a 
contribution of 5 lakhs of rupees for aid against their 
common enemies. On the demand being repeated in 
the following year, Chait Singh strove to evade pay- 
ment by sending 2 lakhs of rupees privately to the 
Governor-General as a bribe to abstain from further 
demands. After some delay Hastings paid the 
money into the public treasury and peremptorily 
called on Chait Singh to pay up in full all arrears, 
and further to supply a force of 2,000 cavalry for 
general defence. Chait Singh pleaded his inability 
to provide either troops or more money, whereon 
Hastings imposed on him a fine of 50 lakhs of 
rupees for delay, and proceeded himself to Benares 
to collect the amount. The subsequent impeachment 
of Hastings by the House of Commons before the 
House of Lords was due to the amount of this fine 
inflicted by Hastings on Chait Singh. When the 
motion for the impeachment of Hastings was before 
the House of Commons, Pitt astounded friends and 
opponents alike by unexpectedly declaring that he 
would vote for the impeachment because he con- 
sidered the fine unjust. " I therefore," he said, " shall 
agree to the motion before the House. But I confine 
myself solely to the exorbitancy of the fine, approving 



138 WARREN HASTINGS. 

every preceding as well as subsequent part of Mr. 
Hastings' conduct, throughout the whole transaction." 

It still remains one of the mysteries of history 
why Pitt should have thus sacrificed Hastings to the 
malignity of his enemies. Pitt, when goaded into 
anger by the universal condemnation of his logic, 
rose and said, " I think the fine of five hundred 
thousand pounds imposed by the Governor-General 
on Cheyt Sing exorbitant. My honourable and 
noble friends think otherwise." No wonder that 
Mr. Dempster, according to Wroxall, a one of the 
most conscientious men who ever sate in Parliament," 
retorted, " Mr. Hastings has been the saviour of our 
possessions in the East ; and if he merits impeach- 
ment for any act of his whole life, it is for having 
been so weak a man as to return to this country with 
a very limited fortune." 

When Chait Singh would not pay the fine he was 
placed under arrest by Hastings and two companies 
of sepoys were directed to guard him. The holy city 
of Benares rose in fanatic alarm. Its narrow streets 
swarmed with bands of armed men loudly calling 
for the release of their Raja. The sepoy guards, 
unprovided with ammunition, were all ruthlessly 
massacred. Reinforcements hurrying to the rescue 
were fired on and driven back. Hastings in the 
confusion escaped to the fortress of Chanar on the 
south of the Ganges, some thirty miles distant from 
Benares, whence with evident indifference to the 
emeute which surged around he proceeded to issue 
directions respecting the more important affairs of 
the Maratha movements. The disturbance was soon 



BEG A MS OF OUDH. I 39 

quelled : Chait Singh fled, carrying off his treasures, 
leaving behind a nephew who was installed as Raja, 
the tribute being raised by the addition of some 
^"200,000. 

Oudh had next to be forced to contribute to the 
general defence of peace and security against the 
threatened storm of anarchy. 

From Oudh a sum of over one million sterling (one 
and a half crores of rupees) was due to the Company 
for military and civil charges. When the Nawab 
Wazir died, in 1775, he left treasures amounting to 
some two millions sterling, which were seized by his 
wife and mother, known to history as the Begams of 
Oudh, who also possessed lands yielding a yearly 
income of ^"50,000. 

By an agreement between the new Nawab Wazir, 
Asaf-ud-Daula, and Hastings it was decided that the 
landed estates of the Begams should be resumed by 
the Nawab in consequence of their undoubted partici- 
pation in the insurrection at Benares, but that the 
revenues accruing from the estates should be con- 
tinued to them for life. The debts due to the Com- 
pany were to be paid from the treasures left by the 
deceased Nawab Wazir. The residence of the Begams 
was surrounded by British troops, and the custodians 
forced to surrender upwards of one million sterling 
of the late Nawab Wazir's hoarded wealth. The 
Company was enriched, Asaf-ud-Daula obtained the 
lands held by the Begams, and in return presented 
Hastings with a gift of 10 lakhs of rupees. This 
gift, according to the custom of the times, might have 
been retained by Hastings as a private donation. 



140 WARREN HASTINGS. 

He, however, reported the circumstance to the 
Directors, asking if he might be allowed to keep 
the money — a request to which the Directors curtly 
declined to accede. 

At this time the affairs of the Company were 
in a condition from which Hastings could alone 
retrieve them. As he wrote, " I much fear, that 
it is not understood as it ought to be, how near the 
Company's existence has on many occasions vibrated 
to the edge of perdition, and that it has at all times 
been suspended by a thread so fine that the touch 
of chance might break, or the breath of opinion dis- 
solve it : and instantaneous will be its fall whenever it 
shall happen. May God in His mercy long avert it." 

Hastings had secured Bengal and Behar, but round 
Bombay the Marathas held sway, and Haidar All 
was threatening the south. At Poona Ragunath 
Rao, commonly known as Raghuba, had assassinated 
his nephew, the ruling Peshwa, and assumed the 
sovereignty for himself. His hopes were, however, 
dashed to the ground when the widow of the pre- 
ceding Peshwa was declared to have given birth to 
an heir, brother to the prince whom Raghuba had 
removed from his path. Raghuba was driven forth 
from Poona, and fled to the English at Bombay, 
promising them, in return for their aid in re- 
storing him to the Peshwaship or hereditary rule 
over the Marathas, the harbour of Bassein and the 
island of Salsette, possessions the English had long 
coveted. The bribe was too tempting to resist, so 
the Government of Bombay determined to become 
King-makers on its own account. At the fatal field 



WARGAON. HI 

of Arras the Marathas and English met for the first 
time in their long series of conflicts ; Colonel Keating 
winning the day but losing 222 of his men. 

Bombay was, however, subordinated to Calcutta, 
so Francis — who had not yet been removed from 
the path of Hastings — and his supporters directed that 
the war should be suspended, Bassein surrendered, 
and 12 lakhs of rupees paid to the Marathas for 
the expenses they had incurred. The truce did 
not last long. The Marathas sought French aid, 
and the Bombay Government again espoused the 
cause of Raghuba. Four thousand men and six 
hundred Europeans were despatched from Bombay 
under Colonels Egerton, Cockburn, and Camac to 
force the English alliance and Raghuba on the 
Poona regency, while Hastings sent an envoy to 
win the Bhonsla ruler of Nagpur from joining the 
Western Marathas. By slow marches the Bombay 
troops arrived within eighteen miles of Poona, were 
there surrounded and obliged to retreat. At 
Wargaon, an unconditional surrender was made, the 
English commanders agreeing to give back all their 
acquisitions and surrender two hostages for the 
carrying out of this disgraceful convention. The 
Bombay Government had framed their policy and 
shown their incapacity to carry it to a successful 
conclusion ; the Marathas had easily triumphed over 
them in diplomacy and warfare. Removed though 
Hastings was from the scene of action by over one 
thousand miles, he resolved to venture on the most 
brilliant military movement ever conceived, up to that 
time, by the English in India. Collecting together 



142 WARREN HASTING?. 

nine battalions of native troops, composed of 6,234 
men, a body of sepoy cavalry from Oudh, and artillery, 
he placed them in charge of Colonel Leslie and 103 
English officers, and bade them march across India, 
accompanied by some 30,000 camp-followers, to the 
aid of the Bombay Government. 

Colonel Leslie was soon replaced by an abler 
officer, General Goddard, who, hearing of the defeat 
of Egerton, made his way to Surat, avoiding the 
Maratha force at Poona. This march might well 
have been considered impossible, or, in Hastings' own 
words, " astonishing and impracticable " ; it, however, 
as he said, " has shown what the British are capable 
of effecting." The force marched on into Gujarat, 
took possession of its capital Ahmadabad, and then 
falling unexpectedly on the Maratha camp put it to 
rout. 

Through Central India Captain Popham had been 
directed to march towards Gwalior, a fortress of the 
Rana of Gohad held by the Marathas under Sindhia, 
deemed so safe from assault that Sir Eyre Coote 
declared it would be little less than insanity to 
advance to its attack. For two months Popham 
watched the precipitous rock on which the fort 
was built, devising means whereby he might assault 
it. On the night of the 3rd of August, 1780, two 
companies of sepoys, led by Captain Bruce, brother 
of the Abyssinian explorer, and four lieutenants, sup- 
ported by twenty Europeans and two battalions of 
native troops, advanced to the foot of the fortress. 
Their feet were wrapped in cotton, and by means of 
ladders they silently scaled the first defence, a solid 



CAPTURE OF GWALIOR. 1 43 

wall of smooth rock, sixteen feet high. Above, a 
steep ascent of forty yards was climbed. A few of 
the sepoys were then drawn up a scarped wall thirty 
feet high by ropes let down by some spies, and when 
joined by the rest rushed forward and overpowered 
the garrison, gaining possession of the famed fortress. 

The fall of his stronghold dismayed Sindhia, and 
for the first time taught the Marathas that their efforts 
to found their fortunes on the break up of the Mughal 
Empire were futile, for a foe was in their midst whom 
they could never hope to overcome. Colonel Camac 
had in the west retreated through Malwa before 
Sindhia, only to double back, on the night of the 
24th of March, fall on the Maratha camp, which he 
utterly routed, slaying numbers, seizing the standards, 
thirteen guns, and all the enemy's camels and ele- 
phants. Goddard's troops had, however, been driven 
from Poona down the Bore Ghat with a loss of 
nearly five hundred men, including eighteen European 
officers, by an overwhelming force of sixty thousand 
Marathas. 

Sindhia was, however, anxious to make peace, so 
that he might stand forth as leader of the Maratha 
confederacy, assured of the goodwill of the English 
with whom he negotiated terms. 

The Bombay Government obtained the islands of 
Salsette and Elephanta, the Marathas agreed to make 
no alliances or friendships with any European nation 
except the English, the Gaekwar received back 
Gujarat, Sindhia retained all his possessions west 
of the Jumna, the fortress of Gwalior was sur- 
rendered to the Rina of Gohad and Ra^huba set 



144 WARREN HASTINGS. 

aside with a pension of 25,000 rupees per month. 
The English influence was thus established by 
Hastings across the whole of India from Calcutta 
to Bombay, the general pacification being concluded 
in May, 1782, by the Treaty of Salbai. 

In the meantime Haidar All in the south — enraged 
by the neglect of the Madras Government to defend 
him, according to an agreement of 1769, from the 
attacks of the Marathas — had increased his army, 
officered it with French and European soldiers of 
fortune, waiting his time for revenge on his faithless 
allies. On the outbreak of the war between France 
and England, Hastings seized not only the French 
settlements at Chandranagar and Pondicherry, but 
also Mahe on the west coast. From Mahe Haidar 
All had drawn his supplies, from Mahe came the 
French officers who trained his troops and the French 
soldiers who manned his artillery. His wrath was 
further raised from the fact that Mahe was within 
his territories, and he had vowed to sweep into the 
sea any of the English who dared to interfere either 
with it or with his allies the French. 

Collecting together a huge army of 15,000 infantry, 
2,800 cavalry, 4,000 armed retainers, and accompanied 
by the strongest artillery then in India, and 400 
French and European officers, he hastened down 
from the Highlands of Mysore to spread over the 
peaceful villages of the lowland plains a devastating 
war with all the suddenness and violence of a 
monsoon storm. The Madras Government had no 
money, and but 6,000 troops to oppose the 
fierce Mysore monarch. From the fort of St. George 



HATDAR ALL 1 45 

the English merchants saw in the night-time 
the sky reddened for miles around with the flames 
from burning villages and their own residences. A 
force of 3,700 men, marching down along the coast 
from Guntur under Colonel Baillie, was surrounded 
at Perambakam and slaughtered, only 300 officers and 
soldiers escaping to meet with a worse fate in the 
dungeons of the implacable Mysore chieftain. In 
chains and misery they fretted out their lives ; the 
mother of Sir David Baird, remembering the irascibility 
of her captive son, is famed for having remarked, with 
Spartan simplicity, on hearing of his fate, that she 
was sorry for the man who was chained to " our 
Davie." 

Sir Hector Munro, the hero of Baksar, who, on 
hearing of the defeat, marched out from Madras 
with five thousand troops, had to throw his guns into 
a tank and find safety in flight back to Fort St. 
George. Lieutenant Flint, emulating the fame of 
Clive at Arcot, held the fort of Wandewash with 
three hundred sepoys against the victorious forces of 
Haidar AH. 

Not only had Hastings extricated the Bombay 
Government from its difficulties with the Marathas, 
but now in the south he had to uphold the effete 
Madras authorities by sending men and money from 
Bengal. Just as in 1780 he had despatched Colonel 
Goddard at the head of an army to fight the Marathas 
in the west, so now he sent Colonel Pearse to march, 
even further, at the head of five thousand men, to 
fight Haidar All in the south, while by sea he sent 
the funds he had gathered together and the one man 

11 



I46 WARREN HASTINGS. 

he could trust, the veteran Commander Sir Eyre 
Coote who had succeeded General Clavering in the 
Council. 

Flint was relieved at Wandewash, and the stores 
landed at Pondicherry by the French admiral for 
the use of Haidar All were destroyed. 

Coote then moved with his small force to Cud- 
dalore, where he was hemmed in on the sea-coast 
between the overwhelming army of Haidar All 
and the ships of the French. In vain Haidar 
All prayed the French to stand by and strike an 
annihilating blow at the outwitted English com- 
mander ; the admiral, Count d'Orves, sailed away, 
losing his final chance of establishing the influence 
of France in South India. Amid the sand-heaps, at 
Porto Novo, Coote won his glorious victory over the 
Mysore troops, of whom upwards of ten thousand 
were slain. 

By August, 1 78 1, Coote was joined by the forces 
from the north, under Colonel Pearse, whose sepoys 
suffered terribly from cholera on their journey through 
the coast districts. At Pollilur, near the scene of 
Colonel Baillie's defeat, Haidar All was again 
defeated, driven from the pass of Sholinghar and 
obliged to raise the siege of Vellore, which important 
fortress Coote had relieved. A terrible disaster 
befel the English troops at the beginning of the 
year 1782. A force under Colonel Braithwaite of 
100 English and 1,800 sepoys was surrounded by 
an army under Tipu, the son of Haidar All, assisted 
by 400 Frenchmen. All would have perished were it 
not that the French gallantly rushed forward and saved 



SIR EYRE COOTE. 1 47 

some of the English officers from the fierce slaughter 
of the Mysore soldiers. 

On the 8th of April of the same year Bussy 
landed at Porto Novo with 1,200 new French troops, 
seized Cuddalore and there entrenched himself, 
giving the veteran Coote an opportunity of fighting 
his last fight against Haidar All and Tipu, whom 
he drove back from their chief arsenal in the plains, 
the fort of Ami. 

The end was, however, at hand. On the 7th of 
December, 1782, the fierce and brave Haidar All 
died, in his last words praying his son Tipu to make 
peace with the English, whose power neither the 
defeat of Baillie nor of Braithwaite could lessen. 
Coote had repaired to Calcutta to recruit his 
health, and on his return the ship in which he 
sailed was chased by four French frigates. Worn 
out by fatigue and anxiety the brave old general fell 
paralysed as he watched the chase, and died two days 
after he reached Madras. 

On the seas duel after duel had taken place 
between the French Admiral Suffren, and the 
English Admiral Sir Edward Hughes. In one of 
the engagements the French had twelve ships and 
the English but nine, in another the English had 
eighteen and the French fifteen. Were it not that 
Admiral Suffren's skilful tactics were frustrated 
by his incompetent and disloyal captains, the 
English admiral's dogged tenacity and determination 
to fight his ships till they sank would scarcely 
have saved the greater part of his fleet from 
disaster. As it was the French admiral was weary 



I48 WARREN HASTINGS. 

of the war, and when the news of the Peace of 
Versailles reached him in September, 1783, it was 
with a sigh of relief that he exclaimed, " God be 
praised for the peace ! for it was clear that in India, 
though we had the means to impose the law, all 
would have been lost." 

On the shore the French, under Bussy, were still 
entrenched at Cuddalore, where the English had lost 
heavily and were in want of provisions. On the 1st 
of July the welcome flag of truce was hung out by 
the French, announcing the Peace and proclaiming 
that they could no longer fight for Tipu against the 
English. 

Tipu had been winning back the territories of his 
father on the west coast ; he had captured Manga- 
lore, gallantly held for nine months by Captain 
Campbell, and sent the English officers and men 
in chains to Seringapatam, deporting some thirty 
thousand of the inhabitants of Kanara and Malabar 
to Mysore, where they were forciby made Muham- 
madans. 

Colonel Fullerton had, however, approached with 
an overwhelming force within reach of Seringapatam, 
when Lord Macartney directed all hostilities to be 
suspended, and sent envoys to negotiate a peace with 
Tipu. On the nth of March, 1784, the Mysore 
monarch consented to sign a treaty whereby a mutual 
restoration of all conquests made during the war 
was agreed to, Tipu further promising to surrender 
upwards of one thousand Englishmen and one thou- 
sand sepoys held chained in his mountain prisons 
in Mysore. 



HASTINGS LEAVES INDIA. 1 49 

The work of Hastings was accomplished. Bom- 
bay was saved, the Marathas held in check, Sindhia 
reconciled, the Nizam made an ally, and the 
Madras Government supported in its weakness. As 
he said before the House of Commons, in proud 
disdain of its censures, " I enlarged and gave shape 
and consistency to the dominion you held there ; I 
preserved it ; I sent forth its armies with an effectual 
but economical hand, through unknown and hostile 
regions, to the support of your other possessions ; to 
the retrieval of one from degradation and dishonour ; 
and of the other from utter loss and subjection. I 
maintained the wars which were of your formation, 
or that of others, not of mine." And this at a 
time when all from whom he might have expected 
some measure of support, sedulously laboured to 
" weaken my authority, to destroy my influence and 
to embarrass all my measures." Yet in 1782 the 
Directors had resolved to recall him, alleging that 
" he had acted in a manner repugnant to the honour 
and policy of this nation, and thereby brought great 
calamities on India and enormous expenses on the 
Company," a resolution with which, however, the pro- 
prietors refused to agree. 

After the general pacification, Hastings w T aited but 
to place the financial affairs of Benares and Oudh on 
a satisfactory basis before he finally determined to 
return home and join his wife, whom, next to the 
honour and welfare of his country, he dreamed of 
hourly. 

His determination was quickened when, on the 
20th of December, 1784, he received a draft of Pitt's 



150 WARREN HASTINGS. 

new India Bill, curtailing the power of the Governor- 
General, and vesting the entire civil, military, and 
revenue affairs of the Company in the hands of six 
commissioners appointed by the Crown. 

The sad story yet remains to be fairly and ade- 
quately told of how Hastings was sacrificed by Pitt, 
delivered over to the malignity of Francis and those 
whose self-seeking intrigues and narrow-witted policy 
he had so sternly repressed and so proudly ignored. 
It remains to be told by some writer with the 
accuracy of to-day, yet with all the imagination of 
a Macaulay, how unjustly he suffered under the per- 
fervid eloquence of Burke and melodramatic rhetoric 
of Sheridan, how nobly he bore the disgrace of seven 
years of criminal trial before an incompetent tribunal 
which perfunctorily pronounced him not guilty of the 
charges conjured up against him by the malice of his 
enemies. 

His life, his heroism, his proud reserve, and confident 
assurance that all his failings and faults arose from a 
single-minded desire to carry out the intentions of 
his time, are summed up in the words by which he 
declared his own vindication and his accusers' con- 
demnation : " I gave you all ; and you have rewarded 
me with confiscation, disgrace, and a life of impeach- 
ment." 



VII. 



LORD CORNWALLIS AND SIR JOHN SHORE. 



In 1782 Lord Cornwallis, then a prisoner of war 
on parole, after the capitulation of Yorktown to 
Washington, was asked by Lord Shelburne if he would 
proceed to India as Governor-General. Lord Corn- 
wallis curtly refused, for, as he said, he saw no reason 
why he should run the risk of being " disgraced to 
all eternity " in efforts " to fight Nabob princes, his 
own Council, and the Supreme Government, whatever 
it may be." 

When the India Bill of Pitt placed the chief power 
in the hands of the Governor-General and three 
Councillors, and a subsequent Act gave the Governor- 
General authority to act in cases of emergency with- 
out the concurrence, or even in opposition to the 
opinion of his Council, Lord Cornwallis consented to 
assume the office. One very important limitation of 
his powers had, however, been laid down by Parlia- 
ment. It had been enacted that British rule in India 
should not be extended further than over the terri- 
tories acquired by Clive and consolidated by Hastings. 
The wording of the Act was peremptory : " Whereas 

151 



152 LORD C0RNWALL1S AND SIR JOHN SHORE. 

to pursue schemes of Conquest and Extension of 
Dominion in India, are measures repugnant to the 
Wish, the Honour, and the Policy of this Nation . . . 
it shall not be lawful for the Governor-General and 
Council of Fort William, without the express com- 
mand and authority of the said Court of Directors, 
or of the Secret Committee of the said Court of 
Directors, in any case, except where hostilities have 
actually been commenced or preparations made for 
the commencement of hostilities, against the British 
Nation in India, or against some of the Princes or 
States dependent thereon, or whose territories the 
said united Company shall be at such time engaged 
by any subsisting Treaty to defend or guaranty, 
either to declare War or commence hostilities, or 
enter into any Treaty for making War against any of 
the Country Princes or States in India." 

This x^ct had but little effect in checking war or 
in staying the extension of the Company's possessions. 
By the Treaty of Mangalore, the Raja of Travancore 
had become an ally of the English, consequently, on 
his being attacked, in 1790, by Tipu Sultan, Lord 
Cornwall is considered that the terms of the Act 
justified him in declaring war against the common 
enemy, the Mysore ruler. 

The Nizam of Haidarabad was summoned to send 
aid ; the Marathas, hoping to recover the territories 
lying between the Kistna and Tungabhadra which 
Raghuba had surrendered to Haidar All, expressed 
their eagerness to join in the fray. 

In January, 1791, Lord Cornwallis, as Commander- 
in-Chief, took command of the assembled troops before 




"TIPPOO SULTAUN. 

(From Beatson's " War with Tippoo Sultaun") 



154 LORD CORNWALLIS AND SIR JOHN SHORE. 

the fort of Vellore. Bangalore was first captured, 
whereon Tipu put to death nineteen English youths 
whom he still held captive in contravention of the 
treaty of 1784. Cornwallis, not waiting for his Maratha 
allies, hurried on to Seringapatam, the inland capital 
of Mysore. There his supplies gradually failed, and, 
his communications being cut off, he was obliged to 
destroy his siege trains, throw his shot into a river, and 
retreat to Bangalore. General Abercromby, who was 
advancing from the Malabar coast, had to abandon 
his guns at the top of the mountain passes and save 
his contingent by retreating to the plains. So far 
fortune had favoured Tipu, but the next year Corn- 
wallis captured the important fortress of Nandidrug, 
situated thirty miles from Bangalore, on the summit 
of a steep fortified hill, 5,000 feet above the sea level. 
The equally important fortress of Savandnig, 4,000 
feet above the sea level, next fell. 

The united forces of the Nizam and Cornwallis 
then laid siege to Seringapatam ; the Marathas 
occupying themselves in the congenial task of 
raiding the Mysore dominions on the north and 
north-east. Hemmed in on all sides, Tipu Sultan had 
to capitulate, agree to surrender half his territories to 
be divided among the allies, pay a war indemnity 
of 3,000,000 rupees, release all the prisoners he still 
retained, and deliver up his two sons as hostages for 
the due observance of the treaty. 

Far more important than this war with Mysore 
was the Permanent Settlement of the land revenues 
of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. 

When first the direct control of the collection of 



PERMANENT SETTLEMENT. \^ 

the land revenue in the Company's possessions was 
assumed by the Government, in 1772, it was ascer- 
tained that the rayats, or cultivators, had been in the 
habit of paying a fixed share of the produce, either in 
grain or in money value, to local landholders called 
Zamindars. Under the rule of the Mughals these 
Zamindars paid the Emperor nine-tenths of what 
they received, retaining one-tenth for themselves, 
being obliged to render true accounts of their receipts. 
They possessed the power of levying local cesses, they 
could transfer their title by gift or sale, and on death 
their right to collect the revenue passed to the heir 
on payment of a fine or present to the Emperor. 
In all cases where it was deemed advisable to set 
aside the Zammdar he received lands or money by 
way of compensation for the loss of his rights. 

Hastings, on undertaking the management, had 
leased out the right to collect the land revenues for 
terms of five and ten years to the Zamindars or to 
others who bid for the office. He had further made 
the Company's writers collectors of the Government 
share, and placed controlling officers or supervisors 
over them, while local Revenue Councils were gradu- 
ally formed for the chief centres, such as Dacca, 
Murshidabad and Patna. Finally the chief super- 
vising revenue authority was centralised at Calcutta, 
in a Board of Revenue of which the Governor- 
General was a member. 

From 1777 to 1780 the Zamindars were granted 
annual leases to collect the revenue at rates calcu- 
lated on those previously paid. 

These rapid changes did not recommend them- 



I56 LORD CORNWALLIS AND SIR JOHN SHORE. 

selves to an English Parliament anxious to preserve 
the rights of the Zami'ndars, which they looked upon 
as similar to those of British landlords. Accordingly, 
in 1784, by 24 Geo. cap. 25, it was enacted that, 
whereas " divers Rajahs, Zami'ndars, Polygars, 
Talookdars, and other native landholders within the 
British territories in India, have been unjustly de- 
prived of, or compelled to abandon or relinquish, 
their respective Lands, Jurisdictions, Rights and 
Privileges," the Court of Directors should take 
measures, for " establishing, upon principles of 
Moderation and Justice, the permanent Rules by 
which their respective Tributes, Rents, and Services 
shall be in future rendered and paid to the said 
United Company by the said Rajahs, Zami'ndars, &c." 

The Court of Directors in their Despatch of the 
1 2th of April, 1786, went no further than to direct 
that a ten years' settlement should be made with the 
local Zami'ndars. 

Lord Cornwallis, with the assistance of Mr. John 
Shore, a Bengal civilian, afterwards Lord Teign- 
mouth, studied closely, from 1786 to 1790, the whole 
question of land revenue in Bengal. In 1789 a pre- 
liminary ten years' settlement was made with the 
Zami'ndars, the amount to be paid by them to the 
Company being determined from an examination of 
the old accounts and the payments previously made. 
In 1793 this settlement was made permanent, and the 
amount to be paid by the Zami'ndars fixed in per- 
petuity at a total sum of about three millions sterling. 
While the Zami'ndars were thus allowed to gain the 
full benefit of the increased rental accruing from im- 



PERMANENT SETTLEMENT. I 57 

proved cultivation and from new lands being brought 
under tillage, as well as from advances in price of 
produce due to improved means of communication 
and other causes, the State was for ever debarred 
from participating in the gain from this increasing 
unearned increment. On the other hand, only such 
cultivators as could prove an hereditary right were 
granted the security of holding at a fixed rental, 
while the Zamindars were empowered to raise the 
customary rates paid by others by means of a civil 
suit. The loss to the State can be estimated from 
the fact that at present, while the Zamindars pay a 
revenue of but three and a quarter millions, the 
annual rental is upwards of thirteen millions sterling. 

The immediate result to the Zamindars was 
disastrous, for, possessing insufficient powers to re- 
cover the rent from the cultivators, they were unable 
to pay the State demands, and their rights to collect 
the revenue were sold wholesale in order that the 
amounts they had guaranteed might be realised. As 
a matter of fact, in a very short space of time the 
former hereditary right to collect the land revenue 
was sold away from the ancient Zamindars into the 
hands of new leaseholders. 

The tenants suffered more than all. Those who 
could not show an hereditary right to hold at the 
old rate of assessment had little remedy against being 
rack-rented, while on failure to pay the rent de- 
manded, their property was liable to distraint and they 
themselves to be thrust into prison. This deplor- 
able state of affairs continued until the Bengal Land 
Act of 1859 removed some of the evils, though the 



I58 LORD CORNWALLIS AND SIR JOHN SHORE. 

main faults of the system continue to the present day. 
By this Act cultivators holding land since 1793 were 
to possess their tenements without the Zammdars 
having power to raise the rental ; all cultivators 
holding land for twenty years were to be presumed 
to have held since 1793, unless the Zammdar could 
prove the contrary ; while all those holding for 
less than twelve years were left to form contracts 
respecting their rental as best they could with the 
Zammdars. This last class of tenants — those holding 
for less than twelve years — were, by the Bengal 
Tenancy Act of 1885, allowed to claim compensation 
for improvements they had made in their holdings, as 
well as for loss by disturbance in case they were 
obliged to relinquish their lands in consequence of 
excessive advancement of rent. 

This first essay of the British in India in the 
making of land-laws, cannot be held to have been 
particularly successful. It has excluded the Govern- 
ment from participating in the ever-increasing pros- 
perity accruing from peace and the development of the 
chief source of wealth of the country, its agricultural 
produce ; it has not secured to the cultivators their 
full share of these benefits, whereby a contented 
and prosperous community might have been reared, 
while the Zammdars have gained an enormous in- 
crease of wealth without any exertion on their part 
and without any incentive to apply it to the welfare 
of their tenants or the general prosperity of the com- 
munity. 

More successful were the efforts made by Corn- 
wallis to establish on a new basis the entire judicial 



EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS OF THE COMPANY. 1 59 

system in force in the Company's dominions. In 
each district, or chief city, Civil Courts were estab- 
lished, presided over by one of the Company's 
senior writers, assisted by a junior writer and a 
registrar. Four Appellate or Provincial Courts were 
established in Calcutta, Patna, Dacca, and Mur- 
shidabad, presided over by three judges and two 
junior European assistants, learned Hindu and 
Muhammadan lawyers being attached to expound 
the native law. From these local courts appeals 
were heard by the Sadr Diwanf Adalat, or Presidency 
Court, presided over by a Chief Justice and Puisne 
Judges. For the administration of criminal justice 
the judges of the Provincial Courts went on periodical 
circuits of jail delivery, appeals being allowed to a 
Central Appellate Court, or Nizamat Adalat, presided 
over by three judges, assisted by natives who ex- 
pounded the Hindu and Muhammadan law. 

For these labours Lord Cornwallis was allotted, on 
his retirement from India in 1793, a pension of 
£5, 000 a year, and the Directors ordered that his 
statue should be placed in the India House, so that 
" his great services might ever be held in remem- 
brance." 

In the same year the exclusive trading rights of 
the Company to the East were extended for a further 
period of twenty years, with the important proviso 
that private individuals might be allowed to trade to 
the extent of 3,000 tons of shipping. 

Sir John Shore, the successor of Lord Cornwallis 
ruled as Governor-General from 1793 to 1798. 
During his tenure of office the troops of the Nizam 



l6o LORD CORN W ALUS AND SIR JOHN SHORE. 

of Haidarabad met with an overwhelming defeat 
from the Marathas on the fatal field of Kurdla. As 
a result the Nizam once more commenced to enlist 
French troops whom he placed under the command 
of the famed Raymond, with permission to carry the 
colours of the French Republic, and bear the cap of 
liberty on their regimental buttons. 

In Oudh the reigning Nawab Wazir died and a 
new claimant, Saadut All, was installed. The annual 
subsidy to the Company was raised to ,£760,000 
and a special donation of 2 lakhs of rupees 
claimed, notwithstanding the fact that, two years 
before, the Nawab Wazir had agreed to pay for four 
regiments of cavalry instead of the two he was 
previously obliged to retain. 

All these events were but preparatory to the many 
changes that took place during the administration of 
the Great Proconsul, the Marquess Wellesley, who 
succeeded Sir John Shore as Governor-General in 
1798 and ruled until 1805. 




VIII. 

ESTABLISHMENT OF BRITISH SUPREMACY — 
MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 

(1798— 1805.) 



With the advent of Lord Mornington — or, as he 
is better known, the Marquess Wellesley — the cold 
touch of the iron hand of the British rule was felt 
for the first time by the native princes who still held 
sway in the land of their forefathers surrounded by 
all the glamour and pomp of an Oriental despotism. 
The insanely vaunting Sultan of Mysore, the proud 
Nizam of Haidarabad, the puppet Nawab Wazir of 
Oudh, the fierce Maratha chiefs Sindhia, Holkar, the 
Bhonsla, the Gaekwar, and the Peshwa, were one and 
all forced to bow their heads before the imperious 
dictates of the new Governor-General. The aged 
Emperor Shah A lam, deprived of his eyesight by 
the savage stab from the dagger of the insurgent 
Rohilla barbarian Ghulam Kadir Khan, was glad to 
hide himself away as a pensioner of a race his 
ancestors were wont to despise as low-caste traders. 

On the foundations of the British Empire in India, 



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TIPU SULTAN. 163 

laid by Clive and secured by Hastings, the stately 
structure of British supremacy over all the native 
powers in India was now to be built. The new 
Governor-General, assured of the support of a strong 
war ministry at home, and certain of the friendship of 
Pitt, was able, without fear of impeachment, to carry 
out his policy of making every ruling prince in India 
subordinate to, and dependent on, the one supreme 
British Power. This policy he carried out ener- 
getically and consistently, notwithstanding the many 
remonstrances and rebukes he received from the 
Court of Directors, all of which he treated with un- 
concealed contempt. " No additional outrage, injury, 
or insult," he wrote, " which can issue from the most 
loathsome den of the India House will accelerate 
my departure when the public safety shall appear to 
require my aid." 

The first to fall beneath the heavy hand of the 
new Governor-General was Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of 
Mysore. Lord Mornington landed at Calcutta on 
the 17th of May, and on the 8th of June he received 
a paper the contents of which sealed the fate of the 
ruler of Mysore. It was a proclamation from the 
French Governor of Mauritius, or Isle of France, 
announcing that ambassadors had been received from 
Tipu asking for French aid to drive the English out 
of India and calling for volunteers to join in the 
enterprise. This proclamation, added to the fear that 
Buonaparte, wearied of the West, would, after the 
conquest of Egypt, seek to emulate the fame of 
Alexander the Great and attempt the conquest of 
India, determined Lord Mornington to break the 



164 ESTABLISHMENT OF BRITISH SUPREMACY. 

power of Tipu and make the native states disband 
their French soldiers and dismiss their French officers. 
In order to carry out his policy the Governor-General 
had many difficulties to overcome. In the south the 
Madras Government, dreading to rouse the wrath of 
Tipu by making any effort to prepare for the coming 
war, reported that it would be fully six months before 
they could equip an army and place it in the field, 
while the new Nawab of the Karnatik, not only 
refused aid but opened up a treasonable correspon- 
dence with Tipu. 

At Haidarabad the forces of the Nizam consisted 
of fourteen thousand mutinous troops, disciplined by 
French officers, who held lands as security for their 
pay. Captain, afterwards Sir John, Malcolm, induced 
the Nizam to enter into a secret agreement, whereby 
these French troops were to be replaced by six 
thousand sepoys and artillery commanded by English 
officers, paid for by a subsidy of 201,425 rupees. 
The French officers were then forced to surrender, 
and were ultimately sent home to France. The terri- 
tories of the Nizam remained safe under the protec- 
tion of the Company, and the Haidarabad Subsidiary 
Force, raised to twelve thousand in 1800, has since 
been maintained by the Nizam, who ceded lands for 
its pay and maintenance. 

All fear of a French invasion was removed when 
the news reached India that the French fleet had 
been defeated off the mouth of the Nile by Nelson, 
nevertheless the Governor-General was determined to 
deprive the native states of their French officers and 
to continue his preparations against Mysore. Tipu, 



MYSORE WAR. 

who was vainly seeking aid from the Sultan of 
Turkey, the Afghans, and Marathas, replied to all 
the letters of the Governor-General by evasive and 
flippant answers until war was formally declared 
against him on the 22nd of February, 1799. 

Assisted by his brother, Colonel Arthur Wellesley, 
afterwards Duke of Wellington, who had arrived in 
India in 1796, and loyally supported by Lord Clive, 
the Governor of Madras and son of the Victor of 
Plassey, the Governor-General gathered together in 
the south an army, under General Harris, better 
equipped, disciplined, and supplied than any force 
that had yet taken the field in India. 

From Madras General Harris, with the main army 
and a contingent from the Nizam, marched on 
Seringapatam. General Stewart, with a force of 
6,400 men, marched from Bombay through the coast 
districts, and after an obstinate fight of six hours 
drove back Tipu's army of 1 2,000 troops with heavy 
losses from the Siddeshwar Pass. 

The news of the victory was conveyed to the 
Governor-General by the friendly Raja of Coorg in 
the following words : " A severe action ensued, in 
which I was present . . . the discipline, valour, 
strength, and magnanimity of the troops, the 
courageous attack upon the army of Tipu, sur- 
passes all examples in this world. In our Shasters 
and Parana's battles . . . have been much cele- 
brated, but they are unequal to this battle ; it 
exceeds my ability to describe the action at length 
to your Lordship." 

Tipu, smarting from his defeat, hastened to oppose 



1 66 ESTABLISHMENT OF BRITISH SUPREMACY. 

the main army, now slowly advancing on his capital 
at the rate of less than six miles daily. At Mal- 
villi he met with a terrible reverse, General Harris 
slaying upwards of 1,000 of his troops. Beaten 
in the field, Tipu retreated to his defences of 
Seringapatam, which he and his officers had sworn 
to die together defending. 

The siege commenced on the 5th of April, its 
opening operations being memorable for the defeat 
sustained by the "Iron Duke" in the grove of Sul- 
tanpet. This grove, cut up by water-channels and 
trenches, was held by an advanced body of Tipu's 
outposts securely entrenched. To drive them from 
their position Colonel Arthur Wellesley advanced on 
the night of the 5 th of April, at the head of his own 
regiment, the 33rd. As they drew near under cover 
of the darkness, they were suddenly met by a fierce 
fire of musketry and rockets. The ranks were 
thrown into confusion, and many of the men killed, 
whereon the rest broke and retreated, Wellesley 
receiving a wound in the knee from a spent bullet. 
The next morning he advanced again to the attack, 
and with the 94th Regiment, two battalions of sepoys, 
and five guns drove the enemy from the grove. 

By the 4th of May the fort of Seringapatam was 
breached, and the honour of storming it allotted to 
General Baird, one of the unfortunate officers taken 
prisoner on the defeat of Colonel Baillie at Peram- 
bakam, and for four long years kept a close prisoner 
in chains in the dungeons of Mysore. The oppor- 
tunity had come when he was to undertake the 
congenial task of "paying off old scores" for all the 



CAPTURE OF SERINGAPATAM. l6j 

terrible sufferings he and his fellow-prisoners had 
undergone. At ten minutes past one o'clock in the 
afternoon the signal to advance was given. The 
attacking party of 2,494 Europeans and 1,882 
sepoys waited breathless, in the trenches, until 
General Baird rose up and, waving his sword, cried 
out, " Now, my brave fellows ! follow me, and prove 
yourselves worthy of the name of British soldiers." 
Amid a shower of bullets which swept their ranks, 
the troops dashed across the intervening river, and 
within seven minutes from the time of leaving the 
trenches the British flag was planted on the summit 
of the breach. Beyond lay a deep ditch still to be 
crossed. The inner ramparts were crowded with 
the soldiery of Mysore, in the midst of whom stood 
Tipu, dressed in a light-coloured jacket, wide trousers 
of flowered chintz, a dark red silk sash and jewelled 
turban, firing at his advancing foes from guns loaded 
and handed to him by his attendants. At length, 
being wounded, he mounted his horse and endea- 
voured to make his way towards his palace through 
the crowd of retreating soldiers. As he neared the 
narrow gateway leading from the inner ramparts 
he received a second wound and again a third, his 
horse was shot dead, and he fell to the ground. 
Being abandoned, he lay weak and faint. A passing 
soldier, seeing his richly jewelled belt, strove to 
snatch it from him, whereon the- fierce Tiger of 
Mysore raised himself and struck wildly, only to 
fall back shot through the temple. Amid the dead 
and dying the monarch was found, robbed of his 
jacket, turban, and sword-belt. 



1 68 ESTABLISHMENT OF BRITISH SUPREMACY. 

The body, borne by his personal attendants and 
escorted by a guard of Europeans, was carried 
through the thronged streets of his capital, where 
were gathered together the sorrowing inhabitants of 
the town. By the side of his father Haidar All he 
was laid to rest in the Mausoleum of the Lai Bagh; 
the chief Kazi came forward to perform the funeral 
rites, and alms were given to the holy men and to 
the poor who crowded round. As the mourners 
stood by his grave bewailing the downfall of their 
dreaded chieftain a wild storm burst forth, the 
thunder rolled and the lightning flashed, many in 
the town and in the camp were injured or struck 
dead — an event held by the natives as proclaiming 
that the independent rule of their prince had passed 
away and the rule of the English Raj taken its place. 

Seringapatam and all the passes leading down to 
the plains, as well as the entire western sea-coast 
and the districts of Koimbatur, Darapuram, and 
Mujnad on the south and east, were held by British 
troops, and to the Nizam, the districts on the south 
of his territories were allotted. 

The descendant of the last Hindu rulers of Mysore, 
an infant of five years, Krishna Raj, was taken from 
the lowly position into which his family had fallen 
after Haidar All had usurped the power, and placed 
on the throne, where until 1810 he ruled over the 
curtailed dominions under the guidance of the able 
Maratha Brahman Purnaiya. On becoming inde- 
pendent the new Mysore Raja so misgoverned the 
state that he was deposed in 1831, and the manage- 
ment placed in charge of British officials. In 1881 



OUDH. 169 

the native rule was restored in the person of his 
adopted son, Chama Rajendra Wodigar, an en- 
lightened prince who ruled the destinies of his 
people up to his death in 1894. 

To Lord Mornington the Company allotted an 
annuity of ,£5,000 for twenty years. By the Crown 
he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the forces 
in India and to his ill-concealed annoyance he was 
further honoured by being raised one step in the Irish 
Peerage, so that henceforth he became the Marquess 
of Wellesley instead of Lord Mornington. 

One result of the war was the removal of the 
Nawab of the Karnatik from the civil and mili- 
tary control of his dominions on account of the 
treasonable correspondence he had carried on with 
Tipu, full evidence of which was discovered in the 
archives of Seringapatam. His revenues were placed 
under British control, one -fifth allotted for his 
pension, and the remainder set aside to pay his 
private debts and those due to the Company. 

Tanjore was also taken under the administration of 
the Company on the 26th of November, 1799, on the 
occasion of the installation of Sarboji, a son of the 
late Raja. 

Oudh had next to be dealt with : by a treaty made 
by Sir John Shore, in 1797, with the Nawab Wazir, 
the latter had agreed to receive three thousand Eng- 
lish troops, for the protection of his frontiers, and to 
guarantee a sum of ,£760,000 yearly for their pay. 

By the Governor-General it was soon considered 
advisable that additional British troops should be sent 
to Oudh to defend its frontiers from Maratha raids 



I70 ESTABLISHMENT OF BRITISH SUPREMACY, 

and to ward off attacks likely to occur in consequence 
of a threatened invasion of the north of India from 
Afghanistan by Zeman Shah, ruler at Kabul. The 
Nawab Wazir was called on to guarantee the pay of 
these troops. In vain he pleaded his inability to pay 
even for the troops already entertained by the former 
treaty with Sir John Shore. In vain he pointed out 
his inability to pay the amount he owed to the 
European traders and adventurers who carried on a 
lucrative business in his dominions by lending him 
money at exorbitant rates of interest to relieve his 
more pressing necessities. Sooner than guarantee the 
pay of the extra troops he offered to resign his ruler- 
ship, leave his own country and go on a pilgrimage. 
The Marquess of Wellesley was not to be thus trifled 
with. The Nawab Wazir was informed that the 
European moneylenders would be removed from 
Oudh, but that if he resigned his high office his 
territories would be ^annexed by the Company, as 
it was impossible to hand over the government to 
the eldest, or any of the Nawab's sons, for as the 
Governor- General wrote: "What rational hope 
could be entertained that any of these young 
princes would be competent to the correction of 
those evils which his Excellency himself, aided by 
all his knowledge and experience of public affairs, 
has confessed himself unable to remedy." For the 
Nawab Wazir there was no course open but to 
entertain a subsidiary treaty. 

Accordingly, in July, 1 801, by the Treaty of Luck- 
now, the Nawab Wazir agreed to cede, in lieu of a 
subsidy, for the expenses of the perpetual defence of 



TREATY OF LUC It NOW. \J\ 

his dominions by the Company, the whole of the 
fertile lands lying between the Ganges and Jumna 
known as the Doab, as well as Rohilkhand and the 
district of Gorakhpur. For the administration of these 
new acquisitions the ablest of the revenue and judicial 
officers in the Company's service were formed into a 
Board, presided over by the Hon. Mr. Henry Welles- 
ley, afterwards Lord Cowley, " to whose discretion, 
address, and firmness," as the Governor-General wrote 
to the Directors, they were " principally indebted for 
the early and tranquil settlement of these extensive 
and fertile territories." 

The answer of the Directors was characteristic. 
First they resented the patronage of a lucrative 
appointment being taken out of their hands, and 
directed " that Mr. Wellesley be forthwith removed," 
an order which was not carried out by the Board of 
Control. They then voted that the new acquisitions 
of the Company had been wrested from the Nawab 
Wazir " violently and compulsorily," that his consent 
had been extorted and that the treaty was in direct 
violation of existing treaties. 

The Governor-General was, however, too busy in 
endeavouring to frustrate the efforts of the Maratha 
princes to found sovereignties for themselves on the 
ruins of the Mughal Empire either to care for or to 
resent this rebuke. From Berar to Orissa the Bhonsla 
of Nagpur held sway. The rich plains of Gujarat 
were claimed by the Gaekwar of Baroda. Sindhia of 
Gwalior held possession of the blind Emperor Shah 
Alam at Delhi, while his powerful rival, Holkar of 
Indore, had gained for himself the chief place among 



172 ESTABLISHMENT OF BRITISH SUPREMACY. 

the Maratha chieftains by driving forth Sindhia's 
troops and the Peshwa, Bajf Rao, from Poona and 
installing there his own nominee. Baji Rao fled to 
the protection of the English, and on the 6th of 
December, 1802, entered into the Subsidiary Treaty 
of Bassein, which virtually placed the Company at 
the head of the Maratha Confederacy. The Peshwa, 
acknowledged over-lord among the Marathas, agreed 
to abide by the advice of the Governor-General in all 
things, to cede territories yielding a revenue of 26 
lakhs of rupees yearly for the pay of a permanent 
British force for the protection of his dominions, and 
to dismiss his own French and foreign officers. Both 
in England and in India the treaty was vehemently 
attacked by those who held that it must inevitably 
result in war. By others it was held that the treaty 
was absolutely necessary — even if followed by war — 
to check the growing power of the Marathas and the 
influence of their French commanders, especially that 
of General Count de Boigne. War was not long 
delayed, but when it broke out the Marathas had lost 
their chief strength. In former days the hardy 
Marathas, mounted on their swift ponies, swept like a 
swarm of locusts down from their mountain homes on 
the fertile plains, devastated the villages of the peace- 
ful lowland cultivators, burned and laid waste all 
they could not carry off to their forest homes. No 
army could long follow their swift course and rapid 
retreat, for behind them they left no forage for cattle 
nor grain for the troops ; the tanks they breached and 
the wells they filled up or poisoned. If attacked in 
their strongholds they had but to hold out till their 



MARATHAS. I 73 

foes were exhausted for want of provisions and 
obliged to retire, when they could again sally forth, 
cut up the harassed troops, and wage a guerilla 
warfare, in the tactics of which they had no rivals. 

Seeing the success of the Company's disciplined 
infantry sepoys, they deemed that if they submitted 




DE BOIGNE. 

(Frotu Compton's " Military Adventures of Hindustan" — 
T. Fisher Unwin.) 

to be formed into battalions of foot-soldiers supported 
by artillery they would be able to meet the Company's 
troops on equal terms and in overwhelming numbers. 
In 1784 Sindhia had summoned the Savoyard Benoit 
de Boigne to the command of his troops, and for 
eleven years the name of the commander was a 
terror among the opposing native powers, the batta- 



174 ESTABLISHMENT. OF BRITISH SUPREMACY. 

lions he raised and drilled becoming renowned as 
invincible. Yet no one knew better than De Boigne 
the inherent weakness of the system he had succeeded 
in founding. His constant advice to Sindhia was 
that it would be better to disband the whole of the 
battalions rather than venture to place them in the 
field to face the Company's troops. 

When the inevitable fight did take place it was 
found that the system De Boigne had organised, 
though, as he foretold, it did break down, was no 
contemptible one. After the battle of Laswari which 
the Marathas had to fight without the aid of their 
French officers, General Lake in a secret despatch 
to General Arthur Wellesley, wrote : " The sepoys of 
the enemy behaved exceedingly well, and if they had 
been commanded by French officers, the affair would, 
I fear, have been extremely doubtful." The main 
faults of the new system were evident. The French 
officers in the pay of the native princes had neither the 
authority nor the power over their semi-independent 
and often mutinous levies that was possessed by the 
Company's officers over their well-paid and systematic- 
ally recruited sepoys. Further, when once the batta- 
lions raised by the. French officers- were defeated and 
scattered, the loss was complete and irretrievable, for 
there existed neither means nor resources to raise 
fresh battalions to replace the soldiers swept away. 

When, after the Treaty of Bassein, the Peshwa was 
triumphantly escorted back to Poona by a force under 
General Arthur Wellesley, Sindhia viewed the situa- 
tion with undisguised alarm, and summoned his 
brother chieftains to join him in striking a final blow 



ASS A YE. 175 

for Maratha freedom. The Bhonsla hurried up his 
levies, but Holkar held sullenly aloof, waiting to see 
how events would develope. The united armies of 
Sindhia and the Bhonsla amounted to some 100,600 
men,, well drilled, and supported by hundreds of 
cannon • General Wellesley and Colonel Stevenson 
had an. army of 15,000 men ready to march at a 
moment's notice ; while in the north General Lake 
had. 10,000 men, and in Gujarat General Murray 
commanded 7,000 more troops. 

A demand made by General Wellesley that Sindhia 
should withdraw his troops within his own territories 
was ignored, whereon war was declared on the 3rd of 
August, 1 803. The campaign was opened by Wellesley, 
who in four days captured the fortress of Ahmad- 
nagar, and on the 23rd of September, at the head of 
4,500 men, came up with the combined armies of 
Sindhia and the Bhonsla numbering 50,000 men, 
30,000 being cavalry, with 100 guns, at the famed 
field of Assaye. When Wellesley saw the vast 
army stretched out before him he determined to 
attack at once without waiting for the arrival of the 
remainder of his forces under Colonel Stevenson. As 
the British infantry advanced a withering fire from the 
enemy's guns held them back until 360 men of the 19th 
Dragoons and the 4th Native Cavalry charged and 
sabred the Maratha gunners. In this charge the horse 
of Lieutenant Alexander Grant was wedged between 
the wheel of a carriage and its gun which the artillery- 
man fired before Grant could cut him down. The 
guns once silenced the infantry advanced, the Mara- 
thas were chased from the field with enormous losses, 



\j6 ESTABLISHMENT OF BRITISH SUPREMACY. 

ninety-eight guns were left behind, the cavalry having 
ridden off at the first signs of reverse. In this battle 
of Assaye, the most daring and brilliant ever fought 
against the Marathas, General Arthur Wellesley lost 
over one-third of his force in killed and wounded. 

The fort of Alfgarh was taken by General Lake, 
who defeated Sindhia's troops under their French 
commander Perron, Delhi was then captured and 
afterwards Agra with its treasures, arsenal, and 162 
pieces of cannon. 

At the crowning victory of Laswari Lake with 
three regiments of dragoons and five regiments of 
native cavalry charged again and again through 
Sindhia's invincible battalions who valiantly stood 
their ground, " the fellows " as Lake wrote, " fought 
like devils or rather heroes. Pray God I may never 
be in such a situation again." It was not till the 
British infantry came up and charged with bayonets 
that the field was won. Fourteen of De Boigne's 
battalions were destroyed, and 7,000 men out of 
the total strength of 9,000 picked Marathas were 
slain, while the English loss was only 824 men killed 
and wounded. 

On the east coast Colonel Harcourt drove the 
forces from Nagpur out of Orissa, captured Masuli- 
patam, and received from its hereditary guardians 
the custody of the famed temple of Jagannath. In 
the west the Bhonsla's troops were totally defeated 
on the wide plain in front of the village of Argaon, 
and the campaign closed on the 29th of November 
with the capture of the stronghold of Gawilgarh. On 
the 17th of December the Treaty of Deogaon was 



HOLKAR. 177 

signed, by which the Bhonsla of Berar agreed to 
submit in future all his war disputes to the arbitration 
of the Governor-General, to dismiss his French and 
American officers, to cede Cuttack to the Company, 
and other lands to the Nizam, over whose villages he 
for ever relinquished claim to exact " chauth." 
Sindhia, with his boasted battalions destroyed, and 
his chief strongholds captured, signed the Treaty of 
Surgi Arjangaon on the 30th of December, by which 
he yielded not only his rich lands lying between the 
Ganges and Jumna, but all those north of the Rajput 
states of Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Gohad, renounced 
his claims on the Emperor, on the Nizam, and on the 
Gaekwar, delivered up Ahmadnagar to the Peshwa, 
and, to complete his humiliation, agreed to employ no 
more French or American officers in his armies. 

A storm of controversy, congratulation, and con- 
demnation arose in England and in India over 
these rapid wars and bewildering treaties, but amid 
it all the Governor-General proudly stood unmoved, 
complacently surveying the vast territories across 
which he had advanced the British rule. 

Of the Maratha rulers Jeswant Rao Holkar alone 
remained independent. Raging with fury at the 
successes of the Governor-General, he hurried up 
from Malwa, calling on the Rajputs, Rohillas and 
Sikhs to join their troops with his in one mighty 
effort to roll back the wave of conquest now sweep- 
ing on towards their lands and principalities. He 
wisely abstained from taking the open field, where 
he knew that his troops would be swept away by the 
well-drilled and disciplined Company's soldiers. He 

*3 



178 ESTABLISHMENT OF BRITISH SUPREMACY. 

saw that his best policy was to avoid a general action 
and retreat before the slow-moving British troops 
until they were worn out and deprived of supplies, and 
then harass their outposts, and attack them in detail. 
On the advance of General Lake and General 
Monson he fell back, and allowed them to capture 
his stronghold of Rampura. On the approach of the 
rains Lake was compelled to move into cantonments, 
leaving to Monson the seemingly simple task of 
following up the retreating army. With five batta- 
lions of sepoys and four thousand irregular horse 
Monson pursued Holkar through the Mahandwara 
Pass, across the Chambal River. He carried with 
him no stock of provisions, and in his hurry neglected 
to secure his communications over the many river- 
channels and watercourses he rapidly crossed. His 
supplies soon failed, the rain fell incessantly, the 
roads became mud tracks through which it was 
well-nigh impossible to drag the native carts crowded 
with camp-followers and the wives and children of 
the sepoys, who always accompany native troops on 
the march. In the rear the rivers were so swollen as 
to be unfordable, and no boats had been collected 
and left in readiness in case of need, the soldiers 
were dispirited, and it was impossible to drag the 
guns or ammunition waggons further. The one 
chance of safety, and that a doubtful one, was to 
attack Holkar, who seemed not unwilling to fight. 
Monson hesitated for a moment, then turned and 
commenced his disastrous retreat, not staying to 
answer the insulting messages of the Marathas, who 
called on him to fight or surrender. The retreat- 



RETREAT OF MO N SON. 1 79 

ing troops, in want of food, wet and cold from 
the incessant rain, marched wearily on through the 
heavy mud, pausing only to fire on the Maratha 
cavalry, who swept down every now and then to 
slay belated stragglers or to cut up the sepoys 
guarding the baggage. The guns, sunk deep in the 
mud, had to be spiked and left behind, and the 
ammunition destroyed. The deep rivers had to be 
crossed on elephants or rafts, or else a halt called 
until some ford was discovered. Holkar's wild 
cavalry daily grew bolder, while from the neighbour- 
ing mountains the savage Bhils crept down to 
plunder and slay the wounded and carry off before 
the very eyes of the sepoys the unprotected women 
and children. Many of Monson's native soldiers 
and irregular cavalry sought safety in flight, the 
remainder, their last gun left behind, struggled on, 
halting now and then for a few hours' rest. Wearied, 
hungry, and dazed from want of sleep, the dejected 
band at last formed themselves into a square, 
where they were mowed down in hundreds by the 
Maratha guns. The remnant in endeavouring to 
escape were cut down by Holkar's swordsmen, a 
few of the sepoys escaping to Agra, there to spread 
abroad the news of the retreat of Monson and the 
glorious victory of Holkar — a story still sung in the 
villages of Central India in the long, hot evenings. 
The full extent of the disaster was expressed by 
Lord Lake in the words he wrote : " I have lost five 
battalions and six companies, the flower of the army, 
and how they are to be replaced at this day, God 
only knows." 



ISO ESTABLISHMENT OF BRITISH SUPREMACY. 

Arthur Wellesley, surveying the whole campaign, 
the reckless advance without supplies into a hostile 
country where no efforts had been made to keep 
open communications, summed up the situation by 
rejoining : " In my mind . . . the detachment must 
have been lost, even if Holkar had not attacked- 
them with his infantry and artillery." 

Holkar had but a short-lived success. Driven, 
along with his ally the Raja of Bhartpur, from 
before Delhi by Lord Lake, he fled down the Doab, 
burning the Company's villages. From before Dig 
he was driven by General Frazer, who fell mortally 
wounded along with twenty-two of his officers and 
623 of his men, leaving to Lord Lake the capture of 
the citadel and final defeat of Holkar, who escaped 
to the Punjab, where he was forced to accept a 
treaty. 

Before the impregnable fortress of Bhartpur Lake 
lost three thousand of his men in futile and obstinate 
efforts to reduce it, and was finally obliged to retire 
on an assurance from its Raja that the alliance with 
Holkar would be renounced and an indemnity of 
20 lakhs of rupees paid towards the expenses of the 
war. 

The London merchants, who feared to accept the 
responsibility of administering the vast extent of 
territory they had acquired, and who were goaded into 
anger by the contemptuous indifference with which 
the Governor-General treated their remonstrances, 
dreaded to speak out boldly their opinions to the 
haughty Napoleon of India. They had congratu- 
lated him on the early results of his operations against 



k EC ALL OF WELLESLEY. . l8l 

the Marathas, but had cautiously reserved to them- 
selves the right of fully inquiring into, and expressing 
their mature judgment on, the justice and policy of 
entering on the war. They, however, showed their 
personal resentment at his conduct by ordering the 
abolition of a college he had founded at Calcutta for 
the training of junior civil servants, a scheme after- 
wards carried out in its intent by the establishment, 
in 1805, °f the East India College at Haileybury. 

Above all things the Directors were alarmed at 
the state of the finances. The Company's debt at 
home and in India had risen from ^"17,059,192 in 
1797 to ,£31,638,827 in 1806, while their expenses 
and interest on debt amounted to £17,672,017, with a 
revenue of ,£15,403,409. 

With relief they heard of the defeat of Monson, 
and gladly seized what they had long sought, the 
opportunity of recalling a Governor-General whom 
they feared, and of whose power they were jealous. 
The services rendered them by the Marquess Wellesley 
could not be overlooked, so in 1841 it was agreed to 
erect a statue to him as a " permanent mark of the 
admiration and gratitude of the East India Com- 
pany." 

Lord Cornwallis, who came out a second time to 
India to succeed the Marquess Wellesley, died shortly 
after taking up his appointment, and was succeeded 
by a Bengal civilian, Sir George Barlow, who held 
office until the arrival, in 1 807, of the next Governor- 
General, Lord Minto. 

The interval was marked by the sepoy mutiny at 
the fort of Vellore, eighty-eight miles from Madras. 



1 82 ESTABLISHMENT OF BRITISH SUPREMACY. 

There the family of Tipu had been allotted apart- 
ments and allowed to live in semi-regal state, kept 
under a more or less strict surveillance by a guard of 
370 European troops and 1,500 sepoys, under the 
command of Colonel Fancourt. 

In the south it had been considered necessary, in 
order to produce an appearance of military uniformity 
among the Company's troops, that all the sepoys should 
dress alike, shave their beards, cut their moustaches, 
bear no caste marks, and wear a tall glazed hat 
instead of their usual turbans. The sepoys, sus- 
picious by nature, saw in these new regulations some 
deep underlying purpose — some insidious attack upon 
their religion, or an attempt to break through the 
hereditary customs of caste, so that the Company's 
soldiers might grow to be all of one faith, and of one 
race, severed for ever from their kinsmen in the villages 
of their forefathers. The rumours of discontent and 
warnings that secret meetings were being held at 
night-time among the sepoys were received by the 
European officers with disbelief, or else ignored. 

At dawn on the 10th of July, 1806, the pent-up 
feelings of the sepoys burst forth in open mutiny. 
Colonel Fancourt was shot down on the threshold 
of his own house in the fort, volley after volley was 
poured into the barracks where the unarmed Euro- 
pean soldiers vainly endeavoured to screen them- 
selves behind their beds and scanty furniture. A few 
survivors, officers and men, made their escape to the 
ramparts of the fort, pulled down the green flag of 
Tipu, there planted by the mutineers, drove back 
their assailants at the point of the bayonet, and 



VELLORE MUTINY. 1 83 

entrenched themselves in one of the bastions, where 
they waited for help. On the news reaching Arcot, 
nine miles distant, Colonel Gillespie galloped to the 
rescue at the head of his dragoons and native cavalry, 
followed close by his guns. Reaching Vellore, he was 
drawn up to the ramparts of the fort by the defenders, 
the gates were opened for his cavalry, who charged 
in and cut down from 300 to 400 of the mutineers, 
the rest of whom were captured, and, after trial by 
court-martial, shot or punished according to their 
guilt, the number of the regiment being erased from 
the Army List. 

Lord Minto, who succeeded Sir George Barlow, 
landed at Calcutta in 1807. 

Pledged though the new Governor-General was to 
a policy of retrenchment and non-interference with 
the independent or semi-independent states, he soon 
found that the time had not yet come when the sword 
might be sheathed and the lands of the Company rest 
safe from invasion or internal disturbances. 

Beyond the Company's territories lay the lands of 
the warlike Sikhs in the Punjab, ruled over by Ranjit 
Singh, the Lion of Lahore. Beyond were the un- 
known mountains and valleys of Afghanistan, where 
Shah Shuja reigned, and further still lay Persia. It 
was known that Napoleon, thwarted in his ambitious 
schemes of diverting the trade from the East, round 
the Cape of Good Hope, to its ancient route through 
Egypt to the Mediterranean, had, in 1807, at the 
Conference of Tilsit, sought the aid of the Russian 
Emperor Alexander in a final effort to extend his 
conquests over Asia to the far-off Ganges. Above 



184 ESTABLISHMENT OF BRITISH SUPREMACY. 

all things it was therefore deemed necessary that Lord 
Minto should, if possible, gain the friendship of the 
Ruler of the Punjab, the Amir of Afghanistan, and 
the Shah of Persia, so that the Company's territories 
might be safeguarded in case of an invasion from the 
West. 

Although this threatened danger passed away 
when Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808, and made 
war against Russia in 1812, still, in the meantime, 
the Governor-General had sent envoys to enter into 
friendly negotiations with the outlying powers : 
Metcalfe to Lahore, Elphinstone to Peshawar, and 
Malcolm to Teheran. Though little immediate 
benefit resulted from these negotiations, save that 
Ranjit Singh renounced all claims over the Sikh 
chieftains on the Company's side of the Sutlej, they 
form the connecting link between the policy of the 
times of Clive, Hastings, and Wellesley, and that of 
to-day, when it is considered necessary to exhaust 
almost all the available resources of India in extend- 
ing the frontier defences, and making them strong 
enough to withstand any possible attack from Russia, 
whose conquering career towards the East first com- 
menced some seventy years ago. 

Though Lord Minto captured Java in 18 10, and 
Abercromby freed the Eastern seas from the depre- 
dations of French ships by the capture of Mauritius, 
the Directors of the Company were more interested in 
securing the financial prosperity of their possessions 
than in seeking new annexations. In the last three 
years of Lord Minto's administration the Company's 
affairs were so prosperous that there was a balance 



LORD MINTO. 



l8 5 



of ;£ 1 0,000,000 over investments, of which nearly 
^"2,000,000 was sent home in bullion. As a result of 
this increasing prosperity the Directors were enabled 
to convert their debt of ^27,000,000 from a loan of 
12 per cent, to a new one at 6 per cent., saving by 
the conversion an annual payment of ,£592,000. 




IX. 



MARQUESS OF HASTINGS (1814 — 1 823). — EXTEN- 
SION OF INFLUENCE OVER NATIVE STATES. 



By a cynical fate Lord Moira, who in Parliament had 
consistently denounced what he called the injustice 
whereby British rule had been established in India, 
and had vehemently opposed the encroachments of 
Wellesley, was forced, when he himself became 
Governor-General, to continue the very policy he 
had so strenuously condemned, in order to evolve 
peace and prosperity out of the chaos of anarchy into 
which the land had drifted since the removal of the 
firm hand of the Great Proconsul. Lord Moira, in 
fact, saw that by the sword alone could the disbanded 
Maratha and marauding free lances of Central and 
Northern India be held in subjection. 

Anarchy, civil war, fire, rapine, and ensuing famine 
may be held by some, who know not of them, to be 
less baneful than the slow, grinding exactions of a 
civilised government. But those who have seen in 
India the burning remains of once peaceful villages ; 

heard the tales of the fiendish and unutterable tor- 

186 



pindaris. 187 

tures meted out to unoffending peasants to make 
them disclose their wealth or from sheer lust ; viewed 
with senses stayed the bodies of once-loved women 
and lisping children done to death by foul outrage, 
or slaughtered to satiate the savage fierceness of 
bands of roaming robbers, must ever hope that, so 
long as the British rule holds sway in India, the 
sword may never be hidden till the unrestrained 
passions of man have learned to submit themselves 
to the dictates of a civilised government. 

Nine years of timid evasion of the responsibilities 
of ruling the territories handed over to the Company 
by Give, Hastings, and Wellesley had gone far to 
plunge the whole centre of India into a state of 
chronic civil war. Robber bands of Marathas, 
Pindaris, Ghurkas from Nepal, and fierce Pathans 
from beyond the frontiers roamed far and wide, 
raided the villages, and even exacted contributions 
from those in British territories. The Pindaris, some 
fifty thousand in number, rode out yearly, from their 
safe retreats in the valleys of the Narbada, to rob and 
plunder amid the villages of Rajputana, away to the 
east across the sacred lands of Puri, south over the 
deep flowing waters of the Kistna, where they devas- 
tated and burned all they could not carry away. On 
their approach the unarmed folk fled from their 
villages and left them at the mercy of the robbers. 
When the villages were surrounded and flight found 
to be impossible, the inhabitants sought refuge in 
death, grouping themselves together with their wives 
and children in their leaf-thatched huts which they 
fired, preferring to perish in the flames rather than 



188 



MARQUESS OF HASTINGS. 



submit to the wanton insults and fiendish cruelties 
of their relentless foes. 

Through Central India the unwieldy and ill-paid 
armies of Sindhia and Holkar roamed, and laid waste 
the land for miles on either side of their marches, 
until the inhabitants, bereft of grain and food, were 
driven to follow the camp, and beg the soldiers to 
buy their children so that they should not starve. 
Not a single ray of heroism, of chivalry, or even of 
vulgar bravery illuminates the dark page of history 
recording the progress of the Maratha troops. The 
soldiers, when unpaid, lived by pillage ; their chiefs 
squandered their time in debauchery and drunken 
orgies ; a civilised government determined and strong 
enough to enforce law and order could alone have 
saved the land and the people from the grievous 
burden and miseries untold. 

Nepal, the hill country stretching for seven hundred 
miles along the southern slopes of the Himalayas, 
north of Oudh and Rohilkand — occupied by the 
Ghurkas, a race of Rajput descent, who had assumed 
sovereignty over the aboriginal inhabitants of the 
land — first bid open defiance to the British Govern- 
ment. Shut in from the lowland plains by the 
feverish and almost impenetrable forests stretching 
along the base of the Himalayas, known as the Tarai, 
they had gradually extended their influence to the 
south, east, and west, organising and disciplining their 
forces, descending on the Company's villages, carrying 
off the cattle, demanding tribute, and asserting their 
right by force of arms to encroach on British territory. 
When ordered to retire and remain within their own 



GHURKA WAR. I 89 

limits or else accept the alternative of war, the brave 
and hardy mountaineers haughtily replied that the 
soldiers of the Company had already failed to take the 
lowland fortress of Bhartpur — " how, then, was it 
likely that they should storm the mountain fastnesses 
constructed by the hand of God ? " 

Though the Ghurkas numbered but 1 2,000 fighting 
men, yet their prowess was so renowned that the 
Governor-General deemed it necessary to despatch 
24,000 men and 64 guns in four divisions to reduce 
them to submission. Against their stronghold of 
Kalanga, or Nalapani, an open enclosure surrounded 
with stone walls, General Gillespie, the suppressor of 
the Mutiny of Vellore, advanced with 1,000 Europeans, 
2,500 sepoys, and 1 1 guns. The fort was gallantly 
defended by 600 Ghurkas, who repeatedly drove back 
their assailants, the brave General Gillespie falling shot 
through the heart. The garrison held out, and not till 
there were but 70 survivors left did the fort surrender, 
its defence having delayed the expedition for over a 
month. 

From the west a detachment under General 
Ochterlony dragged their guns up the mountain- 
sides, over almost inaccessible paths covered with 
snow, secured each pass and occupied post after 
post until the Ghurkas consented to accept the terms 
imposed on them. 

The British troops were no sooner withdrawn than 
the Ghurkas repented of their submission and refused 
to carry out the treaty. Lord Moira, now created 
Marquis of Hastings, had again to despatch General 
Ochterlony, created a baronet for his previous sue- 



I90 MARQUESS OF HASTINGS. 

cesses, at the head of twenty thousand men, including 
three European regiments, to tame the hardy hill-men, 
who knew not what it was to be defeated. The 
expedition started in February, 1816, and, after a 
series of swift and brilliant operations, the hill-men 
were obliged to recognise the futility of further 
resistance. 

By the Treaty of Segauli the Company obtained 
possession of the hill stations of Simla, Masuri, and 
Naini Tal, and the limits of the Ghurka rule were 
marked out by stone pillars, so that the two powers 
might rest side by side in peace without fear of further 
encroachments. Since the Treaty of Segauli the 
brave little Ghurkas have enlisted in our native army, 
forming some of its finest fighting regiments, and 
have followed the fortunes of the Company and of 
the Crown in many a battlefield, and taken part in 
many a heroic defence. 

Far different from the hardy hill Ghurkas were the 
fierce Marathas and robber Pindaris who had now 
to be reclaimed from their predatory habits. Under 
their leaders, Kari'm, Chitu, and Wasil Muhammad, 
the Pindaris raided the lands of Rajputana, of the 
Nizam, and of the Company, destroyed the crops, 
and tortured with horrible refinement of cruelty 
the unarmed and panic-stricken inhabitants. As 
the wild Pindaris passed swiftly over the land 
they were followed by a noted soldier of fortune, 
Amir Khan, who had gathered round him an army 
of well-paid Pathans amounting in number to up- 
wards of 10,000 infantry, 15,000 cavalry supported by 
artillery, by whose aid he exacted from the chieftains 



PINDARIS. 191 

of Rajputana contribution and tribute. For long the 
Governor-General pleaded with his Council and with 
the Directors for permission to put an end to the 
horrors perpetrated by these robber bands. Woe- 
fully he lamented that he feared the indifference of 
the Company arose from the fact that he had " been 
culpably deficient in pointing out to the authorities 
at home the brutal and atrocious qualities of these 
wretches." 

At length, in 18 16, the long-delayed permission 
came. That there should be no failure the largest 
army up to then assembled in India under the 
Company's rule was drawn round the haunts of the 
Pindaris. From October, 18 17, a force of 120,000 
men and 300 guns closed in from Bengal on the 
north-east, from the Deccan on the south, and from 
Gujarat on the west. Amir Khan, seeing that all was 
lost, surrendered, and was allowed to retire to his 
principality, now known as Tonk. 

The Pindaris vainly strove to escape in detach- 
ments through the steel fence that surrounded them ; 
by the end of January, 181 8, they were all captured, 
dispersed, or annihilated. Kan'm surrendered, and 
was allotted lands in Gorakhpur whereon to live 
peaceably and recount to admiring hearers the glories 
of his past days. Wasil Muhammad was captured, 
and, thwarted in an attempt to escape, committed 
suicide. The last of the famed freebooters of Central 
India, Chitu, was deserted by his followers and after- 
wards found mangled by a tiger in the jungle, his sole 
remaining friend being his horse, which stayed grazing 
by his side. 



ig2 MARQUESS OF HASTINGS. 

The Maratha armies still passed to and fro gather- 
ing strength, hoping that they might yet throw off 
the yoke of the foreigner. In Malwa Jeswant Rao 
Holkar, debauched and drunken, had died in 1811, 
raving mad from his excesses. His widow, Tulsi 
Bai, and one of her lovers, Amir Khan, had assumed 
the regency during the infancy of Malkar Rao, son of 
the late chieftain. To the east were the dominions 
of the powerful Daulat Rao Sindhia, who, curbed by 
the Governor-General in his raids on the territories of 
Bhopal and Nagpur, now fretted over his wrongs, and 
watched with interest the brave resistance of the 
Ghurkas, and extended his protection to the Pindan's. 

Baji Rao II., the Peshwa who reigned at Poona, 
was the acknowledged head of the whole Maratha 
Confederacy. Dissolute, ambitious, weak, and fickle, 
yet outwardly sanctimonious and ever engaged in 
pious deeds, he waited but for the time when, with 
the aid of Holkar and Sindhia, of the Bhonsla and 
the Gaekwar of Baroda, he would be strong enough 
to repudiate his engagements with the Company and 
once again stand forth as hereditary leader among 
the Marathas. With the Gaekwar of Baroda the 
Peshwa found it impossible to open up negotiations, 
for the English there held sway, through the Resi- 
dent, Colonel Walker, during the imbecility of the 
reigning prince. The Prime Minister of Baroda was 
a high Brahman named Gangadhar Sastri, whom the 
Peshwa dreamed he might bend to his will and by 
bribes seduce into an offensive alliance against the 
English. An opportunity soon arose. The Gaekwar 
rented certain villages from the Peshwa, who prayed 



THE PESHWA. 1 93 

Gangadhar Sastri to come to Poona to settle out- 
standing accounts and the financial affairs of the 
two states. The astute Brahman minister, however, 
knew too well the mind and cunning of the Peshwa, 
so refused to travel to Poona until the British 
Resident consented to guarantee his safety. The 
guarantee was given, and Gangadhar Sastri went 
to Poona, where he was feasted and honoured, 
wealth and alliances promised him if he would 
agree to join in the coming war against the 
English. When it was found that the Brahman 
would not turn traitor or receive the proffered 
bribes, the Peshwa determined that at least he 
should not be allowed to carry back the secrets he 
had learned to the ears of the English Resident at 
Baroda. The Peshwa had a low favourite, one 
Trimbakji, willing, in order to gain his master's 
favour, to violate all the traditions and ordinances 
of his forefathers and commit the unpardonable sin 
of killing a Brahman. On a day holy to the 
Hindus, Gangadhar Sastri was prayed by the Peshwa 
and by Trimbakji to visit a famed temple at Pandar- 
pur, and there offer up his prayers to the gods and 
present holy offerings to the temple priests. The 
pilgrimage was made, the religious rites performed, 
but as the unsuspecting Brahman left the temple 
the swords of the hirelings of Trimbakji hewed him 
to pieces. 

When the news reached the Governor-General the 
Peshwa was ordered to deliver up Trimbakji to 
justice, and, as a punishment for his part in the crime, 
to cede territories yielding an income of 34 lakhs 

14 



194 MARQUESS OF HASTINGS. 

of rupees, and to pay for new troops quartered in 
his dominions. Still firm in his belief in the power 
of his intrigues, and enraged at his losses — especially 
at that of his favourite, who had escaped to lead 
an outlawed life — the Peshwa determined to resist 
the demands. With his wealth he strove to spread 
sedition among the soldiers of the Company and 
gain them over to his side ; he levied troops from 
his feudatories, hoping to hide his designs from 
the vigilant eyes of the Company's Resident at his 
capital. The Resident, Mountstuart Elphinstone, 
discerned danger when he saw the Peshwa's troops 
gathering round his cantonments. He had scarcely 
time to remove the English garrison to Kirki, some 
three miles distant from Poona, and send for aid 
to Bombay, when the storm burst. The Residency 
and European houses were first given up to flames, 
and then the Peshwa's army of 18,000 cavalry and 
8,000 foot swarmed out of Poona to annihilate the 
small Kirki garrison who bravely marched out to 
meet the advancing hosts. Between the two armies 
lay a deep morass. Eight thousand picked Maratha 
horsemen charged down on Elphinstone's force, 
plunged into the deep mud, and there, as they 
rode over each other in their confusion, were shot 
down in hundreds. The infantry turned and fled in 
disastrous retreat to Poona, leaving their guns and 
the field to the victorious garrison of Kirki. On 
reinforcements arriving from Bombay, the Peshwa, 
at the head of his troops, was driven from Poona 
and forced to retreat into Khandesh. There he 
was turned back by British troops and obliged to 



DEFEAT OF THE PESHWA. 1 95 

retreat south towards Poona. Colonel Staunton, at 
the head of 500 men, 300 irregular horse, and two 
guns manned by twenty-four Europeans, was at 
once directed to march from Sirur to assist in the 
defence of the capital. This force, after a long 
night's journey, suddenly found itself, in the early 
morning, surrounded by the whole Maratha army of 
the Peshwa, 20,000 horsemen and 8,000 foot, most 
of them fierce Arab mercenaries. Ahead lay the 
village of Koragaon, the shelter of whose mud walls 
was gained by Staunton and his handful of men, 
but not before many of the Arabs had seized the 
best positions. Without sleep, without food or water, 
the defenders held out all day, repelled attack after 
attack, and at times sallied out to meet the masses 
hurled against their slender defence. Five out of 
eight of the British officers were killed or wounded, 
271 of the devoted 800 were dead or disabled, and 
towards night-time one of their guns was captured. 
Lieutenant Pattinson, a giant six feet seven inches 
in height, was lying on the ground wounded, shot 
through the body ; but on hearing the news he rose, 
rushed forward, and with the butt of his musket 
knocked over right and left the Arabs who held 
the gun. Pattinson fell shot once again, and was 
carried away to die. The gun for which he had 
given his life was recaptured, the garrison saved, 
and the Marathas sullenly retired, their whole army 
unable to subdue a single regiment of British troops. 
The Maratha army was pursued, hunted down, and 
dispersed, the Peshwa ultimately deeming it wise to 
enter into negotiations with Sir John Malcolm for 



I96 MARQUESS OF HASTINGS. 

surrender. Deprived of his sovereignty, granted a 
pension of ,£80,000 annually, with permission to reside 
at Bithur, near Cawnpur, his name disappeared from 
history, and his personal property passed, on his 
death, to his adopted son, Nana Sahib. 

In Malwa, Tulsi Bai had placed herself and the 
young Holkar under British protection, only to 
be soon afterwards murdered by her own troops. 
General Hislop and Sir John Malcolm at once 
advanced against the mutinous army, which they 
found, on the 21st of December, 1817, strongly 
posted on the far side of the Sipra River, near 
Mehidpur. 

Having crossed by a ford in the face of the enemy, 
the British cavalry charged under a heavy fire. In 
the fierce fight which ensued thirty-five of Hislop's 
officers were wounded — three fatally — and eight 
hundred of his troops lost ; the Maratha force of 
Malwa lost three thousand men, all their artillery 
and stores, while the remainder retreated in disas- 
trous flight. 

Holkar was forced to accept a subsidiary treaty 
and alliance with the English, and resign all his 
claims for tribute over the chiefs of Rajputana, his 
estates in Malwa being restored to him considerably 
curtailed. 

In Nagpur the Maratha Prince, Apa Sahib, who 
had risen to power by strangling the former Bhonsla, 
his idiot cousin, showed signs of hostility towards the 
Company when news reached him that the Peshwa 
had broken loose at Poona. Undismayed by the 
successes of the British troops elsewhere, the Bhonsla 



sItabAldi. 197 

still continued his preparations for war. At length 
affairs became so threatening that the British Resi- 
dent deemed it wise to move his force of fourteen 
thousand men to two peaks of the isolated Sitabaldi 
Hills lying between Nagpur and the Residency. 

Twenty thousand Marathas and four thousand Arab 
mercenaries laid siege to the position, and succeeded 
in driving a British guard from the peak nearest 
the city. Captain Fitzgerald prayed again and 
again to be allowed to charge, at the head of his 
three troops of Bengal cavalry, into the midst of 
the Marathas, now crowding round on the level 
plain at the base of the hill. His commanding 
officer, angered at the repeated demands, at length 
sent back the answer, " Tell him to charge at his 
peril." " x-\t my peril be it," cried Fitzgerald, as he 
gave the order to charge, with the result that the 
enemy was put to rout and the Arabs driven from 
the hill. When British reinforcements advanced to 
the assistance of the Resident the Bhonsla surren- 
dered, and consented to place all his military power 
under the control of the Company, to cede Berar 
and the lands lying near the Narbada. 

Peace was restored all over Central India, the 
Pindans and Pathan freebooters dispersed, the 
Maratha. armies defeated, and their chieftains re- 
duced to subjection ; the Sikhs alone remained in 
the Punjab to try their strength against the ever- 
victorious arms of the Company. 

Hastings had been made a G.C.B. in 18 19, granted 
a sum of .£60,000, to relieve the pressing necessities 
due to his reckless generosity, and received a vote 



I98 MARQUESS OF HASTINGS. 

of thanks from both Houses of Parliament, only to 
fall at the very summit of his fame and popularity. 

His ward had married Sir William Rumbold, 
partner in the banking firm of Palmer & Co., at 
Haidarabad — a fact used by the firm as showing 
that the sanction, or countenance, of the Governor- 
General had been given to their lending nearly a 
million sterling at exorbitant rates of interest to the 
Nizam's Government, where the money was squan- 
dered and misapplied, instead of being devoted to 
public purposes. Stung by the aspersions made on 
his good faith, Lord Hastings resigned the govern- 
ment of India, and returned home to receive the 
appointment of Governor and Commander-in-Chief 
of Malta. 

During the time of Lord Hastings' administration 
many changes had taken place in the affairs of the 
Company. In 1808 a Secret Committee of the House 
of Commons inquired into the whole business of the 
Indian trade, and sat for four years. The Charter 
of the Company, which had in 1793 been renewed 
for a period of twenty years, expired in 18 14. By 
Parliament the Charter was again continued for a 
further period of twenty years, with very important 
and noteworthy alterations. The principles of free 
trade had gained so rapidly in England that the 
Company was only allowed to retain the monopoly 
of trading to China, but the whole of the Indian 
markets, with certain restrictions, were thrown open 
to competition. A great expansion of trade im- 
mediately took place ; the price of "cotton fell one- 
half, pepper one-quarter, while the rates of freight 



SIR THOMAS MUNRd. 199 

fell from nearly £2$ to less than £1 the ton. In 
fact, as Mill writes in his " History of British 
India " : " The Government of India overcame all its 
temporary financial difficulties, and upon the restora- 
tion of peace was provided with ample means to 
meet every demand. At no previous period in the 
history of the country was the credit of the British 
Government more firmly established, or was the 
prospect of financial prosperity more promising 
than at the commencement of the year 1823, when 
the Marquis of Hastings retired from the guidance 
of the pecuniary interests of India." 

• Notwithstanding the heavy war charges of upwards 
of 9 millions sterling yearly, the surplus of revenue 
over expenditure and interest on debt amounted in 
the last year of Lord Hastings' administration to 
over 3J millions sterling. 

The most permanent memorial of these years of 
prosperity was the revenue settlement made by Sir 
Thomas Munro in Madras. Under this system each 
cultivator became a direct holder of the land, paying 
to the Government its share of the produce, calculated 
in money, on the average output estimated from a 
comparison of the actual yield of each field during 
a normal year and the past accounts. This settle- 
ment was made permanent for a period of thirty 
years, when it became liable to revision, the rates 
of revenue demanded from each cultivator varying 
according to the lands held at from sixpence to 
twenty-five shillings an acre. 

The same period is signalised by the long debate 
in Parliament on the subject of Christianity in India 



200 



MARQUESS OF HASTINGS. 



and the dangers or advisability of the State con- 
trolling the work of the missionaries and chaplains 
sent out from home. A bishop was ultimately 
appointed to Calcutta, and three archdeacons for 
the control and superintendence of the Company's 
chaplains. 




X. 



LORD AMHERST (1823 — 1 828). — FIRST BURMESE 

WAR. 



The five years of Lord Amherst's Government 
saw the expansion of the Company's possessions 
towards the East over Assam, Arakan, and Tenas- 
serim. 

To the east of the Bay of Bengal the land of Burma 
was inhabited by a people of Tibeto-Chinese origin, 
possessing Mongolian features with a fair or yellow 
complexion. The Burmese proper — the Burmese of 
Ava — dwelt along the upper reaches of the Irawadi, 
held in its lower courses by the Talaings of Pegu. 
Incessant warfare between rival princes was broken 
by devastating waves of invasion from the barbarians 
of China on the north or incursions of the armies of 
Siam on the south. 

About the middle of the eighteenth century a 
renowned adventurer, Alompra the Hunter, rose to 
power in the north, drove out the invading Talaings 
from Ava, and then advancing south, conquered Pegu, 
and founded the city of Rangoon near the mouth of 
the river. The successors of Alompra spread their 



202 LORD AMHERST. 

rule over Arakan, invaded Assam, Manipur, and 
Cachar, and at length, growing bold, encroached on 
the Company's territories. When the King of Ava 
was remonstrated with his fury knew no bounds at 
the insult he conceived he had received. The Viceroy 
of Pegu received orders to proceed to Calcutta, arrest 
the Governor-General, and bring him to Ava, bound 
in golden fetters, for execution. War was proclaimed 
by Lord Amherst on the 24th of February, 1824. 

At that time Burma was an unknown land ; nothing 
of its history, geography, or powers of resistance could 
be learned from even the most experienced of Indian 
authorities. On the declaration of war the Bengal 
sepoys alleged that their caste rules prevented them 
from travelling by sea, so the troops from the north 
had to be sent overland from Chittagong to Arakan, 
and up the Brahmaputra to Assam, Madras being 
called on to send her less scrupulous sepoys by sea 
to Rangoon. When Rangoon was reached it was 
found that the Burmese fighting men had disappeared 
into the surrounding jungles, and that the inhabitants 
had fled, leaving the town empty of provisions. The 
advance of the invading force, through the dense 
and fever-laden jungles that covered the land, was 
delayed by the Burmese who defended each posi- 
tion with stockades of interlaced trees and bamboos, 
twenty feet high, against which artillery was use- 
less. For two years the weary war dragged on, 
the Burmese, driven from post to post, at length 
became so demoralised that they fled in their 
thousands from behind their stockades if a single 
English soldier appeared in sight. It was not until 



FIRST BURMESE WAR. 203 

20,000 British troops had been lost, through disease 
or while fighting, and 14 millions sterling expended, 
that the King of Ava, in 1826, sued for peace, 
granted him on condition that he relinquished all 
his claims to Assam, ceded Arakan and Tenas- 
serim, paid a war indemnity of one million sterling, 
agreed to accept a British Resident and enter into 
a commercial treaty. 

Rumours of the disastrous campaign had spread, 
full of exaggeration, throughout North India. The 
Marathas, Pindaris, and Jats once again showed signs 
of insubordination. The Jat chieftain of Bhartpur, 
in Central India, openly defied the authority of 
the Governor-General, and placed his infant cousin, 
the rightful heir, whose succession had been recog- 
nised by the British authorities, in prison. Lord 
Amherst hesitated to give orders for an attack on the 
impregnable fort, so Sir David Ochterlony, who, on 
receiving news of the revolt, had marched against it 
from Delhi, was peremptorily ordered to retire. The 
rebuff sank deep into the heart of the brave old 
general who had fought under Warren Hastings and 
Sir Eyre Coote> and served for fifty years in the 
Company's service. He resigned his appointment 
as agent in Malwa and Rajputana, and died two 
months afterwards in deep dejection. The news had 
now travelled through the bazaars of Central India 
that the Company's troops were obliged to halt in 
their conquering career before the famed fortress, and 
that there were still hopes of the Marathas being able 
to defy the dictates of the Governor-General. Dread- 
ing the effect of these rumours on the half-subdued 



204 LORD AMHERST. 

chieftains of Central India the Governor-General at 
length directed the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Com- 
bermere, to capture the fort, bring the defiant Raja 
to submission, and thus check the spread of a 
threatened outbreak among the Marathas. 

By the 23rd of December, 1825, 25,000 men were 
assembled before Bhartpur, and 130 heavy guns 
poured forth an incessant fire on the citadel. The 
artillery failing to make an impression or effect a 
breach on the sun-baked walls, upwards of sixty feet 
thick, a mine was driven under the main battery of 
the fortress, filled with ten thousand pounds of powder 
and exploded. Slowly the whole bastion, crowded 
with the unsuspecting infantry and artillerymen, rose 
in the air. A mighty roar held the onlookers 
spellbound, the flames and smoke leaped forth, and 
the rising mass was hurled to pieces, dealing death 
among both besieged and besiegers. In the morning 
the breach was gained, and after a desperate fight the 
strongest fort in India, which had so long defied the 
Company's soldiers and sepoys, was captured. Its 
defences were razed to the ground, its name is now 
almost forgotten in Europe, save that it is borne on 
the colours of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, who had 
marched sixty miles in eighteen hours to be present at 
the final assault, the fifth in which they had taken part. 

Many were the reforms which pressed for attention 
during the administration of Lord Amherst, none of 
which could be fully carried out till the time of Lord 
William Bentinck, during whose rule (1 828-1835) 
commenced what may be fitly called the Modern 
History of British Administration in India. 



XI. 



LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK (1828 — 1835). — COM- 
MENCEMENT OF MODERN HISTORY OF BRITISH 
INDIA. 



The first task taken in hand by the new Governor- 
General was the invidious one of restoring the financial 
equilibrium disturbed by the late Burmese war. For 
the five years ending 1829 the annual extraordinary 
charges had amounted to ,£2,878,000, the expenditure 
in 1828 exceeding the income by one million sterling. 

The first saving of ^"20,000 annually, effected by 
abolishing the extra allowance granted to the Com- 
pany's officers when on duty in districts far removed 
from headquarters or when engaged in war, brought 
down such a storm of censure and indignant remon- 
strance on the Governor-General that he found it 
advisable in 1830 to restrict the Press from all dis- 
cussion of the reduction which had been approved 
by the Court of Directors. 

A further annual saving of i«^ millions sterling 
was carried out by a reduction of the military 

forces in the three Presidencies, while civil expend i- 

205 



206 LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK. 

ture was curtailed by the employment, as far as 
possible, of natives in the public service. 

In the North-west Provinces Robert Mertins Bird 
inaugurated the system of collecting the land revenue 
from the village community as a whole — a system 
essentially different from that established in Bengal 
by the Permanent Settlement with the . Zamfndars, 
or that carried into effect in Madras by Sir Thomas 
Munro. 

The most striking of all the reforms made during 
the administration of Lord William Bentinck was the 
abolition of the custom whereby high-caste Hindu 
widows deemed it their sacred duty to burn them- 
selves on the funeral pyre of their deceased husbands, 
a custom especially in vogue in Lower Bengal. The 
custom was a barbarous one of very ancient times, 
its later revival in India being due to special and 
localised causes. Long before the time of Lord 
W. Bentinck efforts had been made to suppress this 
outrage against every feeling of humanity and reason. 

In the time of Akbar, the great Mughal Emperor, 
laws had been enacted to prevent the rite being 
carried out by the Hindus, it being absolutely for- 
bidden to burn widows unless permission was granted 
by the local Governors at the request of the widow. 

In the Portuguese dominions it is recorded, in the 
Commentaries of Alfonso de Albuquerque, as pub- 
lished by the Hakluyt Society, that : " If any Hindu 
died his wife had to burn herself of her own free will, 
and when she was proceeding to this self-sacrifice it 
was with great merry-making and blowing of music, 
saying that she desired to accompany her husband to 







CD 03 
•z "8 



o ^ 

Q ^ 



208 LORD WILLIAM BENT I NCR. 

the other world. . . . However, when Alfonso de Albu- 
querque took the city of Goa he forbade from that 
time forth that any more women should be burned, 
and though to change one's customs is equal to death 
itself, nevertheless they were happy to save their lives, 
and spake very highly of him because he had ordered 
that there should be no more burning." 

The widow who burned herself on the death of her 
husband was called a Sati, a feminine noun derived 
from a Sanskrit verb, " sad," meaning " to be," so that 
a Sati expresses the idea of " a woman who is " — a 
woman deemed to exist above all others, a woman 
virtuous, brave and religious enough to obey the 
ordinances handed down from of old, and sacrifice 
herself on her husband's tomb. In India, it must be 
remembered that social customs and religious duties 
are so interwoven one with the other that the breach 
of even the most unimportant detail of family life, 
habits of eating, drinking, or ablution become the 
subject of religious sanction, bringing down on the 
defaulter the Divine wrath. Though the primary 
reasons for widow-burning can be found in the 
primitive elements of savage society, and in the desire 
of the husband that the wife may have no interest in 
his decease, still, in India there were special reasons 
for its survival and encouragement, especially in the 
lower provinces of Bengal, where it was most pre- 
valent, the number of widows annually burned, some 
voluntarily, some driven by force to the funeral pyre, 
or led stupefied with opium or intoxicating drugs, 
amounting to upwards of 600 to 800. 

In Lower Bengal the law-books most in use or- 



WIDOW BURNING. 20g 

clained from of old that a widow, if childless, should 
be entitled to the use of her husband's property after 
his decease, but that she had no power to dispose of 
such property by gift, sale, or mortgage. It was 
therefore impossible for the childless widow to spend 
the property on the periodical performance of the 
numerous and costly religious rites which the Hindii 
religion and the Brahman priesthood had ordained 
to propitiate the soul of the deceased and hasten 
its journey through the realms where punishment 
was awarded for its evil deeds. It therefore became 
necessary to free the property from the possession 
of the widow, so that it might pass into the hands 
of other heirs competent to distribute it to the Brah- 
man priesthood for the presumed benefit of the 
deceased. The custom of burning widows was in 
vogue among ruder races with whom the Aryans in 
India had come in contact, as indeed it had been a 
custom among the Aryans themselves in very old 
times in their primeval homes in the west. Still 
nowhere in the Vedas — the writings held by all Hindus 
to declare the revealed Will of God — could any direc- 
tion for the unholy rite be found. When efforts were 
made to finally put an end to the custom in British 
India, the difficulty was speedily surmounted by the 
astute Brahman priesthood. One text in the Rig 
Veda gave directions for the conduct of the widow 
on the decease of her husband. It told her that she 
should array herself with jewels and then without 
tears and without sorrow " go up to the altar first." 
The Sanskrit word for " first " is " agre," which 
by a slight clerical alteration was made to read 

15 



2IO LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK, 

" agneh," " of the fire." Having thus mutilated the 
text the Brahman priests declared that the rite of 
widow-burning was a custom inculcated on all high- 
caste Hindu widows by a Divine ordinance, and that 
the intention of the Governor-General to suppress the 
custom was a direct attack on the Hindu religion. 

The Government of Lord William Bentinck, with 
the concurrence of all civilised natives, passed an Act 
on December 4, 1829, declaring that the "practice of 
burning or burying alive the widows of Hindus be 
illegal and punishable by the Criminal Courts." 

One unforeseen result followed on the passing of 
this Act. The high-caste widow was left alive, but 
with no future. 

A girl of high caste in India is betrothed at the 
age of three or four. Though this early form of 
marriage is imperfect and revocable until the final 
ceremony takes place, some time afterwards, when 
the bride and bridegroom take seven steps round 
the family altar, still if the husband die in the mean- 
time, or afterwards, the girl becomes a widow, to 
whose relations the very idea of her remarriage is 
abhorrent, for she is considered for ever spiritually 
united to the deceased, whose future existence depends 
in part on his wife's good or evil deeds. 

It was not till the Act XV. of 1856 was passed that 
an effort was made to encourage the remarriage of 
these Hindu widows, by enacting that "no marriage 
contracted with Hindus shall be invalid by reason of 
the woman having been previously married or be- 
trothed." 

That this Act had but slight effect may be seen 



THAGS. 211 

from the last Census Returns, where it is shown that 
there are 23,000,000 widows in India, 10,165 of them 
under four years of age, and 51,876 of them between 
five and nine. For those who are of respectable 
families, there is but little alleviation from the dull 
routine of a life which is deemed to have failed in its 
primary purposes, that of being a wife and mother, 
for we find from the same Census Returns that in 
India there are but 543,495 women who can read or 
write, the number of those who can neither read nor 
write being 127,726,768, while there are but I'S per 
cent, of girls of school-going age attending school. 

An equally important service rendered to India 
during the administration of Lord William Bentinck 
was the rooting out of the Thags, or professional 
robbers, whose hereditary occupation was the poison- 
ing or strangling of travellers. Some estimate of the 
widespread operations of these criminals can be 
obtained from the fact that between the years 1826 
and 1834, 1,562 of the members of this strange sect 
were tried, 1,404 of them being convicted and 
sentenced to be hanged or else transported for life. 

The existence of Thags in India had been known 
for a long time. In the days of Akbar, it is recorded 
that five hundred of them were hanged, while the 
accounts of early travellers are full of stories respecting 
the insecurity of the roads and dangers of travelling 
on account of the atrocities of these professional 
murderers. 

Thevenot, a French traveller in India in the seven- 
teenth century, gives a detailed account of the opera- 
tions of the Thags, as carried on between Agra and 



212 LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK. 

Delhi. He quaintly details how " the cunningest 
robbers in the world are in that country. They use 
a certain slip, with a running noose, which they can 
cast with so much sleight about a man's neck, when 
they are within reach of him, that they never fail, so 
that they strangle him in a trice. They have another 
cunning trick also to catch travellers ; they send out 
a handsome woman upon the road, who, with her hair 
dishevelled, seems to be all in tears, sighing and com- 
plaining of some misfortune, which she pretends has 
befallen her. Now, as she takes the same way that 
the traveller goes, he easily falls into conversation 
with her, and finding her beautiful, offers her his 
assistance, which she accepts ; but he hath no sooner 
taken her up behind him on horseback than she 
throws the snare about his neck and strangles him." 

These Thags wandered to and fro by road and 
river, disguised as travellers or rich merchants, wait- 
ing for an opportunity to ingratiate themselves into 
the company of unsuspecting wayfarers, with whom 
they journeyed till they found a suitable place and 
time to murder them and carry off their valuables. 
The strangest fact about these stranglers was that 
they travelled about in bands all bound together by 
the strictest vows. Their operations were carried on 
with the utmost secrecy, no traveller whom they had 
ever met being allowed to escape to tell the tale of 
his adventures. All their deeds were supposed to be 
carried out in honour of the dread Goddess Kali or 
Bhavani. To her the pickaxe, which they always 
carried with them to dig the graves of their victims, 
was consecrated, even the noose with which they 



THAGS. 213 

strangled their victims was held sacred. After each 
successful raid, offerings were made in the temples of 
the goddess. Their terrible profession was, unknown to 
the British rule, openly recognised by the native land- 
holders and heads of villages, who shared in their booty 
or purchased their blood-stained and ill-gotten gains. 
On being captured and brought before the English 
Officers of Justice, the Thags did not hesitate to 
proudly recount the full number of the fearful murders 
they had perpetrated, never evincing the slightest 
signs of repentance or remorse or in any way giving 
evidence that they considered their undertakings as 
aught but holy and blameless. The story of their 
deeds, as detailed by themselves, is now preserved in 
manuscript in the archives of the India Office at 
Whitehall, and form the weirdest record of human 
depravity and wayward wickedness that could possibly 
be found in the history of any people laying claim to 
be considered sane and reasoning beings. Yet when 
these savages were not engaged in their so-called 
sacred and lucrative employment they settled down 
as peaceful cultivators till the season arrived, and the 
omens were propitious, for their operations. 

The writings of two semi-orientalised and astute 
administrators, Colonel Sleeman and Colonel Meadows 
Taylor, at length drew public attention to the subject, 
whereon a special department for the suppression 
of the Thags was inaugurated. Within six years 
nearly all the members of the fraternity were hanged, 
transported, or else sent to the Central Jail at Jabal- 
pur to end their days in carpet-making or some other 
useful and harmless occupation. 



214 LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK. 

In isolated parts of India cases of murder still occur 
similar to those perpetrated by the Thags, and no 
officer who has moved among the more ignorant 
classes of the natives and read their thoughts would 
venture to assert that if once the strong hand of a 
civilising power were removed, crimes, equally savage 
and unreasoning, would not again spring to life and 
be casually ignored by the dreamy dwellers in the 
soothing plains of India. 

The Charter of the Company was renewed in 1833 
for a further period of twenty years, but the exclu- 
sive right of trading with China was abolished, while 
the Proprietors' dividend of some ^"630,000 was in 
the future to be paid by an annuity on the revenue. 
Lord Macaulay was sent out as an additional or law 
member of the Governor-General's Council to stamp 
the impress of his imaginative and versatile genius on 
the administration, legislation, and history of India. 
The first question he had to consider was whether 
the higher education of the natives of India, and the 
official correspondence, should be carried on in the 
classical languages of the East or in English. His 
opinion has become historical more for the vigour and 
brilliancy of the language in which it was expressed 
than for any knowledge he possessed of, or new light 
he threw on, the facts he was called on to consider. 

Although he confessed that he knew nothing of the 
classical languages of the East, still he held " that a 
single shelf of a good European library was worth the 
whole native literature of India and Arabia," and 
further, " that all the historical information which has 
been collected from all the books written in the 



MACAULAY. 21 5 

Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be 
found in the most paltry abridgment used at pre- 
paratory schools in England. In every branch of 
physical or moral philosophy the .relative position of 
the two nations is nearly the same." 

By the Resolution of 1835 it was decided that the 
official language of India should be English and that 
for the future it should be the medium through which 
the higher education of the natives should be imparted, 
for as Macaulay urged : " Whoever knows that lan- 
guage has ready access to all the vast intellectual 
wealth which all the wisest nations of the earth have 
created and hoarded in the course of ninety genera- 
tions. It may safely be said that the . literature now 
extant in that language is of far greater value 
than all the literature which 300 years ago was 
extant in all the languages of the world together. 
Nor is this all. In India, English is the language 
spoken by the ruling class. It is spoken by the higher 
class of natives at the seats of Government. It is 
likely to become the language of commerce through- 
out the seas of the East. It is the language of two 
great European Communities which are rising, the 
one in the south of Africa, the other in Australasia ; 
communities which are every year becoming more 
important and more closely connected with our Indian 
Empire. Whether we look at the intrinsic value of 
our literature or at the particular situation of this 
country we shall see the strongest reason to think that 
of all foreign tongues, the English tongue is that which 
would be the most useful. to our native subjects." 



XII. 



LORD AUCKLAND (1836 — 1 842). — LORD ELLEN- 
BOROUGH (1842 — 1844). — AFGHANISTAN. 



BEYOND the Company's dominions the Punjab, 

ruled over by Ranjit Singh, still remained unannexed. 

Further to the west was the wide-flowing Indus, a river 

the glories of which had from of old been sung by 

the Vedic Rishis. It was to the ancient poets the 

boundary of the Holy Land of the Five Rivers 

separating the Aryan people from the wild,' fierce 

tribes beyond. It was the un conquered, mighty, 

swift as a young horse, fair as a maiden, clothed in 

rich garments, gems, and sweet flowers. Like a 

king of battle it roared with the roar of" a bull, 

leading its tributaries to the front ; from before all 

times its path had been dug out by the gods so 

that their worshippers might be protected by its 

sea of waters. Beyond lay the boundaries of the 

world, precipitous mountain ranges, bleak and almost 

trackless, weird and forbidding, raising their peaks 

higher and higher towards the lofty barriers of the 

Hindu Kush and lonely solitudes of the Pamirs closing 

in Afghanistan from Central Asia. 

216 



RUSSIA AND AFGHANISTAN. 21? 

In 1809 Shuja-ul-Mulk, grandson of the first Saduzai 
King of Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah, had been driven 
forth from his kingdom, and came bearing with him 
the famed Koh-i-nur diamond wherewith to bid for 
the alliance of Ranjit Singh, the Lion of Lahore. 
Shah Shuja returned to Afghanistan without the 
Koh-i-nur. In exchange for it he received from 
Ranjit Singh some Sikh warriors, by whose aid he 
hoped to take Kandahar. Dost Muhammad Khan, 
a rugged, honest, self-taught, and self-reliant soldier 
of the Barakzai clan, who had assumed sway in 
Afghanistan, again drove out the weak and distrusted 
Shah Shuja, only to find to his rage and mortification 
that the crafty ruler of the Punjab had in the mean- 
time seized the adjoining province of Peshawar, the 
most prized of all the possessions of Afghanistan. 
He immediately applied to Lord Auckland for assist- 
ance in recovering his lost territories from Ranjit 
Singh. 

To Lord Auckland the situation was perplexing. 
He dared not make an enemy of Ranjit Singh, yet he 
was anxious to gain the alliance of Afghanistan, for it 
was important that a series of friendly independent 
or semi-independent states should be interposed 
between the Company's possessions and the rapidly 
advancing armies of Russia. By the Treaty of 
Turkmanchi, in 1828, Russia had wrested from 
Persia some of her districts on the north-west, and 
received over 3J millions sterling as an indemnity 
for the war expenses as well as an acknowledgment 
of a right to keep an armed fleet on the Caspian. To 
counterplot this extension of Russia's influence, Lieu- 



2l8 LORD AUCKLAND. 

tenant Alexander Burnes was sent in 1 830 on an 
embassy to Ranjft Singh, in 1832 to Bokhara, and 
in 1836 to Afghanistan. The Amir was willing to 
agree to resist all Russian intrigues, and remain the 
firm ally of the Indian Government if Lord Auckland 
would but consent to assist him in the recovery of 
Peshawar. To this Lord Auckland would not con- 
sent. Dost Muhammad was informed that it had 
never been the custom of the British Government 
to interfere in the affairs or disputes of independent 
states. 

The Persian troops, led by a Russian General, 
and assisted by Russian officers, had laid siege to 
Herat, the gateway to Afghanistan and India, where 
the garrison held out under the command of Eldred 
Pottinger. An expedition was at once sent from 
Bombay up the Persian Gulf, and landed on the 
island of Karak which so frightened the Shah of 
Persia that he at once withdrew his troops from before 
Herat. The siege was raised on the 8th of September, 
1838, and India was left free from all Russian intrigues 
in that direction. A graver danger threatened from 
Kabul. Dost Muhammad, weary of the demands 
of Lord Auckland, who would give no promise of 
support in return, had dismissed Burnes on the 
26th of April, 1838, and received the Russian envoy 
Captain Viktevitch. It was at once determined 
by the Governor-General and his advisers that 
Dost Muhammad should be deposed, and that a 
King, friendly to the English, should be placed 
on the throne of Afghanistan. On the 1st of 
October, 1838, a proclamation was issued from 



INVASION OF AFGHANISTAN. 2IO, 

Simla announcing that the Supreme Council had 
directed the assemblage of a British force for 
service beyond the Indus, in order "to gain for the 
British nation in Central Asia that legitimate 
influence which an interchange of benefits would 
naturally produce." The new King had, however, 
to be found to replace the self-willed Dost 
Muhammad. Shah Shuja, who had been thrust 
forth from Afghanistan by his own people, resided 
at Ludhiana, a pensioner of the East India Company, 
and was willing to promise all things, to remain a 
firm ally of the English, to banish the Russians, 
and leave Peshawar safe in the keeping of Ranjit 
Singh. It was therefore further proclaimed by the 
Governor-General that " His Majesty, Shuja-ul-Mulk, 
will enter Afghanistan surrounded by his own troops, 
and will be supported against foreign interference and 
factious opposition by a British army. The Governor- 
General confidently hopes that the Shah will be 
speedily replaced on his throne by his own subjects 
and adherents, and when he shall be secured in 
power, and the independence and integrity of 
Afghanistan established, the British army will be 
withdrawn." 

Under Sir Willoughby Cotton, an army of 9,500 
picked men, and four times the number of camp 
followers, crossed the Indus at Rohri, while Sir John 
Keane, with 5,600 men from Bombay, advanced along 
the Indus to join the main body from Bengal, our 
"ancient and- faithful ally," Ranjit Singh, refusing to 
allow a large force to pass through his dominions 
towards the direct route to Afghanistan by way of the 



220 LORD AUCKLAND. 

Khaibar Pass. As the expedition passed through 
Sind, held to be a tributary of Afghanistan, its chief- 
tains were reduced to submission and made to pay 
tribute, the Political Agent having been directed to 
inform them that if they resisted, " neither the 
ready power to crush and annihilate them, nor the 
will to call it into action were wanting if it appeared 
requisite, however remotely, for the safety and 
integrity of the Anglo-Indian Empire and frontier." 
After a long and weary journey through unknown 
deserts where neither supplies nor water could be 
obtained, the expedition under Cotton reached the 
Bolan Pass on the ioth of March. It had already 
suffered heavy losses in horses, camels, and camp 
followers, the baggage having been plundered on the 
route by the uncouth Baluchi robbers who came swarm- 
ing round. Through the bleak Bolan Pass the dis- 
pirited, cold, and half-fed soldiers held on their way 
till they reached Quetta, where Sir John Keane 
assumed command, and led them on through the 
Khojak Pass towards Kandahar. 

On the 8th of May his Majesty Shah Shuja was 
paraded through the streets of Kandahar at the head 
of the combined British troops to receive the homage 
of his wondering subjects who turned away in sullen 
indifference from their new King, those alone remain- 
ing whom British gold had won, or hopes of future 
favours held subservient. On the 21st of July the 
British army carried Shah Shuja on to Ghazni with 
but two days' supplies in the camp and no prospect 
of obtaining more in a hostile land. The gates of 
Ghazni were blown open by Lieutenant Durand,and in 



222 LORD AUCKLAND. 

the desperate struggle which ensued for the possession 
of the fortress Colonel Sale was cut across the face 
with a tulwar, two hundred of the British troops fell, 
killed and wounded, and the fierce Afghan defenders 
lost five hundred of their number before they sur- 
rendered their stronghold and its supplies to the hated 
foreigners and their puppet King. On the fall of 
Ghazni the Governor-General obtained an Earldom, 
Sir John Keane a Peerage, Macnaghten and Pottinger 
Baronetcies. Dost Muhammad, on hearing the news 
of the fall of Ghazni fled from Kabul across the 
Hindu Kush, accompanied by his son, Akbar Khan. 
For six days and nights the brave James Outram and 
George Lawrence, with one hundred followers, rode 
after the flying monarch, past the fortified Afghan 
villages, over the steep passes of the Hindu Kush to 
Bamian, but their guides had been bribed to delay on 
the road, so the exiled King escaped to seek aid far 
away. Shah Shuja, brilliantly arrayed and decked 
with jewels, was led on a white charger through the 
bazaars of Kabul, where the people rose not to salaam 
before him, but sat scowling beneath their shaggy 
eyebrows at the foreigners who had come to seek out 
the secrets of their homes and rule them with a rod 
of iron. 

The Governor-General had proclaimed that when 
the King of Afghanistan " shall be secured in power, 
and the independence and integrity of Afghanistan 
established, the British Army will be withdrawn." 

The King who could alone be established in power 
in Afghanistan was the able ruler, Dost Muhammad, 
who had for a time fled, and the British army sub- 



SHAH SHU J A. 223 

sequently withdrawn was not the army that paraded 
Shah Shuja through the streets of Kabul as their 
chosen ally, but the army that came to avenge its 
slaughter and acknowledge the right of Dost Mu- 
hammad to reign. 

Ten thousand British soldiers remained in Afghan- 
istan during the winter of 1839 to support the weak 
Shah Shuja. To conciliate the fierce Pathan hill 
robbers of the passes lying between Kabul and the 
Punjab a yearly subsidy was promised them by the 
British envoy, while to the Ghilzai tribesmen an annual 
allowance of £3,000 was meted out in order to 
induce them to abstain from raiding the convoys 
travelling to and from Ghazni and Kandahar. The 
winter passed away in ominous quiet. At the request 
of Shah Shuja the British troops were removed from 
the spacious and well-fortified citadel, the Bala. 
Hissar, which commanded the city from the west, 
and lodged in an open space, surrounded by weak 
mud walls, known as the cantonments, a position well 
within range of the neighbouring forts and hills. 
Still no one dreamed of danger. Dost Muhammad 
was an exile in Bokhara, where the British envoys, 
Connolly and Stoddart were kept in cruel captivity 
and afterwards murdered. D'Arcy Todd was sup- 
posed to have won by his gold the friendship of the 
ruler of Herat, while, in November, 1839, the Russians 
had fallen back with fearful loss to Orenburg after 
their disastrous effort to penetrate the sandy deserts 
lying round Khiva. 

Peace seemed assured from the Indus to the Oxus. 
Shah Shuja listened with becoming submission to the 



224 LORD AUCKLAND. 

advice of Sir William Macnaghten, the British envoy, 
while Dr. Lord ruled and raided the chieftains round 
Bamian, beyond the Hindu Kush, as though he were 
King over the lands of the weak Shah Shuja. Wise 
men had declared before the war began that the 
difficulties would only commence when the army had 
fully occupied the land, and that not a man would 
return alive to tell the tale of Afghan treachery and 
vengeance. All these gloomy forebodings were 
forgotten, and the envoy rode through the streets of 
Kabul in fancied security. The English officers 
brought their wives from India, the nobles of 
Afghanistan came to visit the gardens in the canton- 
ments, bringing presents of grapes, melons, and 
peaches, eager to learn how to grow potatoes, peas, 
and other vegetables. None seemed to note, or if 
they did, to care, how the rage daily burned in the 
hearts of the wild, fierce Afghans, as the hated 
foreigners wandered through their villages and passed 
down their streets, treating with haughty contempt 
their jealous looks. A tremor of unrest ran through 
the garrison, and the guns were hastily mounted 
within the mud walls of the cantonments when the 
news came that Dost Muhammad had been released 
by the Khan of Bokhara, and was advancing towards 
Bamian at the head of an army of Uzbek and 
Hazara cavalry. Later on came the tidings that the 
Bengal cavalry had refused to charge against the 
advancing foe and had looked on while Dr. Lord was 
slain, and their officers, Fraser and Ponsonby, driven 
back, wounded and disabled, to carry the news of 
their defeat to Sir Robert Sale. It was but a shadow 



DOST MUHAMMAD. 225 

that had fallen across the path of the British envoy. 
On the evening of the 4th of November, 1840, Sir 
William Macnaghten was riding home sad and 
dejected by the side of George Lawrence, when "a 
robust, powerful man, with a sharp aquiline nose, highly 
arched eyebrows, and a grey beard and moustache 
which evidently had not been trimmed for a long 
time," rode rapidly up to them, dismounted from his 
horse and seized the stirrup of the envoy, bowing 
down in submissive salutation. It was the unfortunate 
Dost Muhammad who, weary of his exile and know- 
ing that he could no longer resist his fate, had ridden 
in to surrender. He was escorted into India by Sir 
Willoughby Cotton, where he was allowed to reside, 
being granted a pension of .£20,000 a year, his free 
and open manners, his strength of character and 
honesty making his former foes regret that they had 
ever quarrelled with him. Shah Shuja, on the other 
hand, is bluntly described by General Nott as 
" certainly as great a scoundrel as ever lived." He 
was despised and hated by his own subjects, his 
British allies would have been glad if they could 
have honestly abandoned him. The occupation of 
Afghanistan was costing the Indian Government over 
\\ millions sterling annually ; the military officers, 
chafing at the secret intrigues and vacillating policy 
of the political officers, were weary of the whole 
business, and contented themselves with prognosti- 
cating ultimate failure and disaster. 

Herat had been abandoned when it was found that 
its ruler had only pretended friendship so long as he 
could obtain money from the British envoy stationed 

16 



226 LORD AUCKLAND. 

there. On Sir William Macnaghten the Governor- 
General impressed the necessity of making all possible 
financial retrenchments : consequently the yearly 
subsidy to the hill tribesmen was withheld, whereon 
they once again commenced their old guerilla war- 
fare, and had to be bought off by Sale, who, while 
endeavouring to return to India, was attacked by them 
in the defiles of the Khurd Kabul passes. In the 
midst of all the uncertainties and dangers gathering 
round, the Governor-General appointed General 
Elphinstone to the command of the army of occu- 
pation, notwithstanding the brave old soldier's remon- 
strances that he was physically unsuited for the post, 
for as he wrote " if anything were to turn up I am 
unfit for it, done up in body and mind." 

Not only was the Commander-in-Chief incompetent 
to command the army, not only were the cantonments 
practically defenceless, but the envoy, Sir William 
Macnaghten, was pledged to see nothing but success 
follow from all his negotiations, notwithstanding the 
fact that he had received reliable news that the 
Afghans had sworn that not a foreigner would leave 
the country alive, and his destined successor, Sir 
Alexander Burnes, lived in the city, carrying on in 
fancied security his own intrigues in the midst of 
bitter foes, who met nightly to discuss how they 
might avenge the insults he had showered on them. 
Sudden and swift as a raging cyclonic storm the 
devious course of the pent-up fury of the Afghan 
race burst on the unsuspecting garrison, guilty and 
innocent alike. No pen has dared to fully tell the 
tale of insult the Afghans may have had to avenge ; 



" SIKANDAR BURNES. 227 

the terrible vengeance they poured forth on the in- 
vaders of their land and homes will ever overshadow 
and obliterate the memory of the acts and deeds they 
so savagely and indiscriminately punished. 

On the ist of November, 1841, Sir William Mac- 
naghten wrote that all was well, that the land "was 
perfectly quiet from Dan to Beersheba." Early the 
next morning the bazaars of Kabul were filled with 
excited crowds of armed Afghans, who surged to 
and fro calling for the blood of " Sikandar " Burnes 
and the gold in the British Treasury. As Sir 
Alexander Burnes looked forth from the house 
where he had .chosen to live in the midst of the 
city, he heard the angry roar and saw the 'Treasury 
in flames and his own stables burning. Well he 
must have known what the outbreak meant, well he 
must have felt that he of all men could hope for no 
mercy. As he came forth to speak the bullets flew 
past him, and below, the wild eyes of the Afghans 
told their hate and savage determination to reap a 
fearful vengeance for all past wrongs. The brave 
Broadfoot fell by his side ; still the crowd called for 
the life of " Sikandar " Burnes. Burnes and his 
brother, disguised as natives, essayed to escape 
unnoticed through the surrounding crowd, but as 
they stole out they were cut to pieces by the 
cruel, sharp, heavy knives of the infuriated Afghans 
Shah Shuja's sepoy guards tried to make their way 
through the crowded streets, where they were fired at 
from the housetops and forced to retreat. From the 
city, where the Treasury and house of Burnes were in 
flames, guns opened fire on the King's palace. From 



228 



LORD AUCKLAND. 



the British force of five thousand fighting men at the 
cantonments no help came. George Lawrence, who 
rode to the King for orders, was cut at by an Afghan, 
one of his escort was wounded, and he had to flee for 
his life. Captain Sturt of the Engineers, son-in-law 
of Sir Robert Sale, was stabbed at the palace gates and 



f ~- ' v 7^, L* fit, i v * 




KABUL. 

(From "Journal of an Afghanistan Prisoner" 
by Lieut. Vincent Eyre.) 

carried back senseless to the cantonments. The King, 
pallid with fear, not knowing whom to trust, gave 
orders and then countermanded them, kept the British 
force, which had arrived about noon from the Siya 
Sang heights, waiting so long that there was nothing 
left for them to do but cover the retreat of the sepoy 



FLIGHT. 229 

guards from the city. In the cantonments Mac- 
naghten rode sadly to and fro, wondering how they 
would receive the news in India, trying to persuade 
himself that the outbreak would soon be over, while 
Brigadier Shelton declared his willingness to fight, 
but his belief that there was no hope for the army 
of occupation but instant flight from the land so 
full of ill-fate to the British. The day wore on 
and nothing was done. Inaction was followed by 
despondency, soon to give way to sullen indifference. 
From the surrounding villages the tribesmen thronged 
into the city. From Jalalabad to Kabul, and from 
Kabul to Kandahar the land was full of fierce foes. 
The fort holding all the supplies, stores, and pro- 
visions for the army of occupation was abandoned 
to the enemy, leaving but two days' food in the 
cantonment for a garrison of five thousand men and 
over twelve thousand camp followers. The British 
position was untenable. From the neighbouring hills 
and surrounding forts the Afghans picked off the 
garrison with unerring aim, firing from rests their 
long Jazails or guns, which carried further than the 
English muskets. There was no course open to the 
envoy but to make the best terms he could with 
the enemy and secure his retreat to India. On 
the nth of December he promised to give back to 
the chiefs their chosen King Dost Muhammad, and to 
abandon Shah Shuja if the British army were allowed 
to march in safety out of Afghanistan. The treaty 
once made, Macnaghten repented. He could not 
bear to think that his long-hoped march of triumph 
would be turned to an ignominious retreat, and all his 



23O LORD AUCKLAND. 

bombastic boast over the success of his mission to 
be silenced for ever. He determined to make one 
final struggle to extricate himself from his difficulties 
before he surrendered. Secret negotiations were 
opened up with some of the treacherous Afghan 
chiefs to see if they could be bribed to take the 
side of the English and abandon the national cause 
and Dost Muhammad. To Akbar Khan, son of Dost 
Muhammad, the envoy offered the sum of ,£300,000, 
a pension of ,£400,000, and to make him Prime 
Minister if he would yet stay his hand and support 
the still reigning sovereign, Shah Shuja. To all 
Akbar Khan feigned to agree. He asked Mac- 
naghten to come out from the cantonments and 
meet him on the neighbouring slopes of the Siya 
Sang hills, where the new treaty might in secret 
be ratified. The envoy, though warned not to trust 
himself within the power of the Afghan, would not 
listen. Perhaps he still trusted in his own diplomatic 
powers, or it may be he resolved to stake his life in 
a final effort to retrieve the situation. With George 
Lawrence, Captain Colin Mackenzie, and Captain 
Trevor he rode forth on the 23rd of December to 
meet Akbar Khan, who sat waiting on a mound not 
three hundred yards from the cantonments, surrounded 
by his chieftains and guards. As they drew near the 
Afghans closed round, Akbar Khan seized Sir William 
Macnaghten by the left wrist, and as the envoy 
struggled and cried out, " For the love of God ! " 
Akbar Khan in a sudden fury of passion drew a 
pistol from his waist and fired. Macnaghten fell, 
and in an instant was hewn to pieces by the sharp 



THE RETREAT. 23 1 

knives of the guards. The envoy's head was carried 
to Kabul, paraded through the city, and then hung 
up in the market-place for the crowd to jeer at. 
Lawrence and Mackenzie were seized and carried 
away on horseback, Trevor was cut down as he 
struggled to escape. The garrison watched the 
affray from the cantonments, in their consternation 
crowding round Macnaghten's escort as it rode back, 
to learn full details of the disaster. The cry was for 
an immediate retreat on Jalalabad, where Sir Robert 
Sale was entrenched. On New Year's Day of 1842 
all the enemy's demands were acceded to. Hostages 
were given for the immediate evacuation of the country. 
The spare guns, arms, and ammunition were delivered 
up, the army retaining only six field-pieces. All the 
money in the military chest was paid over to the Afghan 
chiefs, 6 \ lakhs of rupees being promised to them when 
the retreating force was again safe on Indian soil. 

All around, the frozen ground lay buried a foot 
deep beneath the falling snow. In the cantonments 
the sullen British soldiers, the cowering sepoys, the 
half-starved camp followers as they crouched round 
their flickering fires made up of stolen furniture, the 
women — some with new-born children — all heard with 
weary indifference the order given for the march 
across the bleak mountains for Jalalabad. By many 
the words which Lady Sale, in those sad hours, kept 
repeating to herself must have been remembered with 
an equally woful significance : — 

" Few, few shall part where many meet, 
The snow shall be their winding sheet ; 
And every turf beneath their feet 
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre." 



2 $2 LORD AUCKLAND. 

On the morning of the 6th of January 4,500 
fighting men, enough in fair fight to have hurled the 
cowardly Afghans back to their dens, 12,000 camp 
followers, men, women, and children passed over the 
razed cantonment walls on the long march which 
few survived to tell of. Before the rear-guard had 
joined in, the deserted houses in the cantonments 
were pillaged and burned, the baggage and spare 
stores carried away. As the half-frozen camp 
followers sank weary by the roadside, they were slain 
by the marauding Afghans who followed up their 
retreating foe, firing with their long-ranged Jazails 
into the straggling ranks. 

Through deep snow, through icy rivers, brooks, and 
rivulets the band marched on, their clothes frozen 
and stiff, to reach their camp, only five miles out from 
Kabul, where neither food nor tents awaited them. 
That night many sank to sleep who never woke. 
The survivors needed no bugle-call to summon them 
in the early morning to rise and once again face 
death. The guns were spiked and left behind, the 
numbed sepoys threw away the muskets they could 
no longer carry. In front lay the long journey of 
one hundred miles to Jalalabad over precipitous 
mountain-peaks. From the hillsides the Ghilzai 
mountaineers rolled down rocks, and fired into the 
crowded mass of soldiers and camp followers. Before 
five miles' march was accomplished 500 soldiers and 
2,500 followers had fallen. Women carrying infant 
children struggled on ; Lady Sale, with a bullet in her 
arm and three bullet-holes through her mantle, had 
to remain behind and comfort her daughter, who sat 



DR. BRYDON. 233 

weeping by the side of her husband, the gallant 
Engineer officer Sturt, now wounded to death by the 
stroke from an Afghan knife. The end was close at 
hand. On the next day, the 9th, the surviving women 
and children, along with Lawrence, Pottinger, and 
Mackenzie, were given up as hostages to Akbar Khan. 

Not a single sepoy of those who left Kabul on the 
6th of January lived to reach the Haft Kotal Pass on 
the morning of the 10th, and by night-time of the 
same day only 250 white men reached the Tazin 
Valley, 8,200 feet above the sea level. The next 
day two hundred fought their way on to the Jagdalak 
Pass, where Elphinstone and Shelton were detained 
as hostages by Akbar Khan. The remainder still 
fought with all the desperation of despair, tore down 
the barricades of stone and interlaced trees that 
blocked their path, and turned again and again to 
face their relentless foes. Step by step death marched 
by the side of the last few remaining victims. The 
hill clansmen had sworn to let no foreign foe escape 
alive through their mountain passes, of which they 
held themselves the hereditary guardians. With calm 
patience they followed the dwindling band of heroes. 

On the road to Gandamak the last survivors fell 
one by one. At Fathabad six officers, all that re- 
mained, stayed to beg for food, and but three escaped 
to ride on towards Jalalabad. Two were cut down 
when within two miles of safety, and Dr. Brydon alone 
remained, except those left behind as hostages, out 
of the 16,500 who had marched out of Kabul. By 
his side rode a fierce Afghan horseman, waiting for 
an opportunity to rush in and slay the last of the 



234 LORD AUCKLAND. 

foreigners. Dr. Brydon's wearied horse made one 
fatal stumble, the Afghan rode in and Brydon's sword 
was severed at the handle and his knee deep wounded. 
As Brydon learned forward in pain, the Afghan, fear- 
ing the Englishman was about to draw a pistol, rode 
away in haste, leaving the sole survivor to carry the 
news of the fatal retreat to Jalalabad, where the 
garrison gazed forth from the walls, wondering what 
strange fate brought the jaded horseman from the 
lonely mountains across the desert valley. 

All night the beacon fires blazed forth, and the clarion 
note of the trumpet sent forth by the sentinels on the 
walls of Jalalabad died away to a moan up the 
mountain-sides, as if in mournful lament that there 
was no one left to steal forth from the long valley 
of death. From trembling lip to trembling lip the 
tale of woe was whispered among the defenders of 
Jalalabad, but along the bleak hillsides of the Khurd 
Kabul Pass the fallen bodies of the soldiers lay wrapt 
around with deep silence, where they remained, the 
sole memorials of the disastrous advance of the British 
army into Afghanistan. 

Of those that left Kabul 120, including Lady Sale 
and Lady Macnaghten, remained alive in the hands 
of Akbar Khan, while a few sepoys escaped to 
Peshawar to spread the story of retreat through the 
villages of the Punjab. 

The garrison at Ghazni had surrendered, the officers, 
including John Nicholson, who afterwards fell at the 
siege of Delhi during the Mutiny, being taken 
prisoners to Kabul. At Kandahar Nott and Raw- 
linson — afterwards Sir Henry— held out ; at Jala- 



WITHDRA WAL. 235 

labad Sale, Broadfoot, and Lawrence remained 
entrenched. 

Lord Auckland sank beneath the crushing weight 
of the " unparalleled errors " and " unparalleled disas- 
ters " which had signalised his Governor-Generalship, 
and he returned home, to leave to other hands the 
rescue of the prisoners and relief of the garrisons still 
bravely holding out at Kandahar and Jalalabad. 

Lord Ellenborough reached Calcutta as the new 
Governor-General on the 28th of February, 1842, 
the herald of a new policy according to which Sale 
was to be relieved at Jalalabad, and Nott at Kandahar, 
after which the troops were to be "withdrawn ulti- 
mately from Afghanistan, not from any deficiency of 
means to maintain our position, but because we are 
all satisfied that the King we have set up has not, as 
we were erroneously led to imagine, the support of 
the nation over which he has been placed." 

Shah Shuja, as a matter of fact, was killed at Kabul 
on the 5th of April, and his body thrown into a ditch, 
Akbar Khan having assumed the sovereignty in the 
absence of his father, Dost Muhammad. 

Not till the same month was General Pollock, 
aided by George Clerk and Henry Havelock, able 
to restore heart to the sepoys of the relieving force 
who had lost all confidence in their officers, and lead 
them through the Khaibar Pass. 

Jalalabad once relieved, Lord Ellenborough was 
reluctantly obliged to consent that the garrison from 
Kandahar should join the troops under Pollock and 
Sale at Kabul and rescue the prisoners from the hands 
of Akbar Khan. 



236 LORD AUCKLAND. 

Ghazni was accordingly taken and razed to the 
ground by Nott, and the Khurd Kabul passes cleared 
of the opposing tribesmen by General Pollock. By the 
14th of September the British colours were flying once 
more over the citadel at Kabul, and the prisoners, 
with the exception of General Elphinstone, who had 
died regretted by all, safe among their friends and 
relations. The Great Bazaar was blown up, and 
unfortunately much of the city was given over to 
indiscriminate pillage and plunder. 

On the 1st of October, 1842, exactly four years 
after Lord Auckland's unfortunate declaration of war 
the future policy of the Governor-General was declared 
by proclamation from Simla by the Secret Depart- 
ment of the Indian Council in the following high- 
sounding words : — " Disasters unparalleled in their 
extent, unless by the errors in which they originated, 
and by the treachery by which they were completed 
have in one short campaign been avenged upon every 
scene of past misfortune ; and repeated victories in the 
field . . . have again attached the opinion of invincibility 
to the British rule. 

" The British Army in possession of Afghanistan 
will now be withdrawn to the Satledge. The 
Governor-General will leave it to the Afghans 
themselves to create a government amidst the 
anarchy which is the consequence of their crimes. 

" Content with the limits nature appears to have 
assigned to its empire, the government of India will 
devote all its efforts to the establishment and 
maintenance of general peace, to the protection 
of the Sovereigns and Chiefs its allies, and to 



S/ND. 237 

the prosperity and happiness of its own faithful 
subjects. 

" The rivers of the Punjab and the Indus, and the 
mountain passes, and the barbarous tribes of Afghan- 
istan, will be placed between the British army and an 
enemy approaching from the west — if, indeed, such 
an enemy there can be — and no longer between the 
army and its supplies." 

The army returned to India in triumph ;' Dost 
Muhammad went back to Afghanistan to establish 
his rule firmer than it had ever been, his last per- 
plexing remark to the Governor-General being that 
he could not understand why he had been deprived 
of his " poor and barren country." 

The answer to the question lies in the future. As 
long as the ruler of Afghanistan holds his state 
independent from foreign influence and is able to 
preserve internal peace and prosperity, it will be to 
the interests of British rule in India to court his 
alliance, support his administration, and by all pos- 
sible means strengthen his position. 

In 1842 the lesson was learned that Afghanistan 
held the elements out of which an independent and 
united nationality might possibly in time be evolved, 
and that, notwithstanding the vast distance of the 
British army from its basis, and the follies of its com- 
manders, its power could not ultimately be resisted 
by any state surrounding its borders. 

One immediate result of the war with Afghanistan 
was the conquest of Sind by Sir Charles Napier. 

Sind was originally subordinate to Afghanistan, its 
Muhammadan rulers, or Amirs, holding a semi-inde- 



238 LORD AUCKLAND. 

pendent authority along the lower valleys of the 
Indus. After the retreat of the British army from 
Kabul some of the Amirs became refractory, as was 
their wont when occasion offered, and repudiated the 
treaties they had made to preserve peace. Lord 
Ellenborough thereupon resolved to declare war with 
them and annex their country. The political morality 
of this resolution was tersely summed up by Sir 
Charles Napier, who wrote, "We have no right to 
seize Sind, yet we shall do so, and a very advanta- 
geous, useful, and humane piece of rascality it will be." 

Sir Charles Napier marched with 2,700 men against 
the army of Sind, consisting of over 20,000 Baluchi's, 
whom he completely defeated at the battle of Miani. 
The final result of the victory was telegraphed by 
Sir Charles Napier to the Governor-General in the 
following words : " I have Sind (sinned)." 

One last war occupied Lord Ellenborough before 
he was recalled, in June, 1843, by the Directors who 
were more than dissatisfied with his erratic policy 
and fondness for military display. On the death of 
Jhankuji Sindhia, in 1843, his widow, Tara Bhai, a 
girl of twelve, adopted a relative aged eight as son 
and heir, whom she succeeded in having enthroned 
at Gwalior as Jaiaji Rao Sindhia. The Governor- 
General and Tara Bhai disagreed on the choice of a 
regent, a disagreement which ultimately resulted in 
a declaration of war. The army of Gwalior, which 
had reached upwards of 30,000 infantry and 10,000 
cavalry, was defeated by the Commander-in-Chief, 
Sir Hugh Gough, at Maharajpur, both sides losing 
heavily. 



MARA THAS. 



239 



In a final battle at Panniar on the same date, 
December 29, 1843, the Marathas were finally over- 
thrown. The Governor-General forced his terms on 
the state, the Maratha army was reduced in num- 
bers, and the English contingent raised to a 
disciplined force of 10,000 sepoys, a force which 
afterwards caused considerable trouble and anxiety 
during the Mutiny of 1857. 




XIII. 

LORD HARDINGE (1844 — 1 8 4 8 )- — THE SIKHS AND 
ANNEXATION OF THE PUNJAB. 



Probably the most marvellous character in Indian 
history is Ranjit Singh, the Lion of Lahore, who for 
nearly fifty years held the Punjab in the hollow of 
his hand. 

In 1836 Baron Hiigel, who was then travelling 
in the Punjab, writes : " Ranjit Singh is now 54 
years old. The small-pox deprived him, when a 
child, of his left eye, whence he gained the surname 
of Kana, one eye, and his face is scarred by the same 
malady. His beard is thin and grey, with a few dark 
hairs in it ; according to the Sikh religious custom, it 
reaches a little below his chin and is untrimmed. His 
head is square and large for his stature, which, though 
naturally short, is now considerably bowed by disease ; 
his forehead is remarkably broad. His shoulders are 
wide, though his arms and hands are quite shrunk ; 
he is the most forbidding human being I have ever 
seen. His large, brown, unsteady, and suspicious 
eye seems driving into the thoughts of the person 

with whom he converses, and his straightforward 

240 



RAN JIT SINGH. 24 1 

questions are put incessantly and in the most laconic 
terms. His speech is so much affected by paralysis 
that it is no easy matter to understand him." 

Such was Ran jit Singh, the craftiest if not the 
ablest sovereign who ever founded an empire in India. 
Drunken, dissipated, avaricious, cruel, and debauched, 
he yet, in the words of Sir Lepel Griffin, " possessed in 
an extraordinary degree the qualities without which 
the highest success cannot be attained. Men obeyed 
him by instinct and because they had no power to 
disobey." Illiterate, unable to write, signing his orders 
with the impress of his hand dipped in saffron, he 
read all men, noble or mean, as if their thoughts 
were spread out before him. Though he deemed that 
his hospitality had not been fully extended to Gover- 
nors-General or British envoys unless he reeled from 
their presence intoxicated with his favourite beverage 
of " brandy prepared for him, in which were the 
strongest sauces compounded from the flesh of every 
kind of animal, beef excepted, pearls and jewels, musk 
opium," yet no man found him otherwise than fasci- 
natingly courteous and clever, able to overreach all 
in the subtle finesse of diplomatic intrigue. Callous, 
selfish, cold, and false, outrager of all laws of morality 
and even decency, deformed, paralysed, with fiendish 
cynicism acknowledging the children of his many 
wives as his own, he was yet followed to the funeral 
pyre by the tears and lamentations of his subjects. 
Four of his Ranis, veiled and clothed in white silk, 
held his hands ; seven of his fair and beauteous slave 
girls, some not fourteen years of age, barefooted and 
calm, sat at his feet, while the flames from the sandal- 

1; 




Y^/&'^7^^'^fff?H^X ; ^rf^ , ^lipS0^f\ !J»yw PtfRS'iuyj 



RANJIT SINGH. 

(From " 77ze Cowrf ^mrf Ccm7/> of Runjcet Sing," by the 
Hon. W. G. Osborne.) 



RANJIT SINGH. 243 

wood and aloes carried their souls and that of their 
lord to the abode of the gods; even his Prime Minister, 
Raja Dhyan Singh, overcome for the time, had to be 
forcibly restrained from seeking death when the son 
of Ranjit Singh fired the pyre. 

Many are the stories told of Ranjit Singh, whose 
greed and rapacity were the pivots on which all his 
actions turned. When Shah Shuja, driven out from 
Afghanistan, reached India, a hospitable reception 
was offered him by Ranjit Singh, who had learned 
that the exile carried with him the famed Koh-i-nur 
diamond, the early history of which fades away amid 
legendary lore and idle fables. It was described by 
the Hon. W. G. Osborne, military secretary to the 
Earl of Auckland, as " a jewel rivalled if not sur- 
passed in brilliancy by the glance of fire which every 
now and then shot from the single eye of the Lion 
of Lahore." It shone for many years on a pillar 
placed on the summit of Akbar's tomb ; it was 
worn by Shah Jahan and Aurangzib ; it was 
carried away from Delhi by Nadir Shah, and became 
the property of Ahmad Shah Durani, from whom it 
descended to Shah Shuja. 

By threats, entreaties, and promises Ranjit Singh 
induced the exiled Afghan King to deliver to him 
the celebrated jewel, which finally, in 1849, was 
surrendered to the Queen of England. Nothing 
once desired by Ranjit Singh was allowed to re- 
main unacquired. He expended 60 lakhs of rupees 
and the lives of twelve thousand men before he 
finally wrested from the Governor of Peshawar the 
second wonder of the East, the wondrous mare Lai'li, 



244 LORD HARDINGE. 

a treasure which few could ever induce him to 
exhibit, perhaps, because (and this has always been 
a disputed point) he never obtained the famed mare, 
some other less valuable horse having been sub- 
stituted to deceive the avaricious monarch. 

Ranjit Singh, at the age of twelve, came into 
possession of the lands of his forefathers, and head- 
ship of the Sukarchakia Confederacy. Following 
the time-honoured custom of his race, he murdered 
with his own hands his mother and her lover. By 
the time he was twenty years of age he had extended 
his influence over the neighbouring districts. He 
was then welcomed as Governor of Lahore by the 
inhabitants, who were glad to escape from the lust 
of their three profligate rulers who had devastated 
the city, unroofed the houses, and driven forth half 
the citizens to seek shelter elsewhere, from plunder 
or worse. By degrees he brought beneath his sway 
all the varied chieftains, who, originally cultivators, 
had after the raids of Ahmad Shah Durani and the 
Afghans, risen to power by gathering round them 
bands of fighting men to conquer and annex the 
territories which they held, until compelled to ac- 
knowledge the supremacy of the new ruler of 
Lahore. As Ranjit Singh looked round he saw 
that if he desired to hold the Punjab independent 
of Afghanistan and the English possessions, he 
must organise and discipline an army capable of 
united action against all invaders. Up to the 
time of Ranjit Singh, local chieftains had enrolled 
under their banners bands of Sikh fighting men, 
each horseman clad in coat of mail, gold inlaid 



THE SIKHS. 245 

helmet, and heron's plume, or gay-coloured flowing 
silk raiment, and armed with spear, matchlock, 
sword, and round shield of buffalo hide slung across 
his back. These bands considered themselves free 
to come and go, serve or desert, as the chances of 
reward or plunder became more or less certain. 
They formed a brotherhood, in which all were equal 
and united in a common, fierce, religious fanaticism — 
the Sikh faith. The Sikhs numbered in the time of 
Ranjit Singh, probably what they were found to be at 
the last Census of 1891, not two millions, while the 
Muhammadans and Hindus of the Punjab exceeded 
twenty-two millions. The word Sikh merely means 
disciple — a disciple of a religious teacher,or guru, whose 
duty it is to teach and expound the Adi Granth or 
sacred Bible of their religion, a book held to be a 
revelation from God. Nanak, son of a shopkeeper of 
Talwande, near Lahore, was the first guru, or teacher, 
of the Sikhs. Born in 1469, he died at the age of 
seventy-one, leaving behind him the Adi Granth, a 
book still daily worshipped, still preserved with more 
than superstitious awe in the Golden Temple of 
Amritsar, the sacred shrine of Hari in the Pool of 
Immortality. Through the Adi Granth runs the 
faint sound of a message proclaimed, afterwards in 
clarion notes, by a poet and prophet of New England. 
In India the message was no new one ; it had been 
proclaimed over and over again, Nanak gave it but 
a new and local significance, teaching it to Hindus 
and Muhammadans alike — to the Hindus, rank 
idolaters, to the Muhammadans, believers in one 
God and Muhammad the Prophet of that God. 



246 LORD HARDINGE. 

The new teacher did not claim for himself any 
Divine attributes, nor did he assert that he had 
received any special revelation. Influenced by the 
prevailing Muhammadanism of the Punjab, he de- 
nounced idolatry, and social distinction founded on 
caste laws. Influenced by the Pantheistic teaching 
of purer Hinduism, he taught an universal brother- 
hood, based on the belief that all life is but an 
emanation from a Divine Creator known under 
various names, as Supreme Being, God, Brahma, 
Govinda, or Hari the appellation chosen by the 
Sikhs. The idea that the human soul, or that the 
phenomenal world could exist as separate from the 
Eternal Cause from which it is evolved, was held 
to be a delusive fancy, ever leading men astray. 
The soul of man was liable to transmigration 
through a continued series of births in bodily forms 
until, by an accumulation of virtuous deeds done 
during life, the result of all past transgressions was 
washed away, and no further rebirth was necessary. 
The gurus, or Sikh teachers, also claim the power 
to grant exemption from these continual transmigra- 
tions. 

Nanak was followed by a series of teachers, until 
finally, the tenth, and last Guru, Govind Singh, 
appeared. His father, Tej Bahadur, the ninth Guru, 
had been cruelly tortured and put to death by the 
fanatic Mughal Emperor Aurangzib. To avenge his 
death and protect the followers of the Sikh faith 
from persecution, Govind Singh determined to unite 
the disciples together into a brotherhood of soldiers. 
Every Sikh soldier on initiation was baptised with 



THE K HALS A. 2\J 

a mixture of water and refined sugar, stirred by a two- 
edged dagger, after which he became a member of the 
Khalsa, or Army of the Guru, and to his name the 
title Singh or Lion was affixed. He had to give up 
the use of tobacco, vow to carry a sword and dagger, 
not to cut his hair or beard, to abandon the Indian 
loin-cloth and wear short drawers reaching to the knees, 
to renounce the custom of female infanticide, then 
universal in the Punjab, and to free himself from 
the laws of caste. Guru Govind Singh having banded 
these disciples together into an army breathing fanatic 
hatred of all Muhammadans and oppression, it be- 
came the dream of Ranjit Singh's life to make that 
army invincible. In 1839 the Khalsa consisted of 
29,168 men with 192 guns, officered, drilled, and 
disciplined after the manner of European troops. 
To his aid he summoned officers of acknowledged 
ability from many lands, the most noted being 
Generals Ventura and Allard, who had served under 
Napoleon, Colonel Court a Frenchman, Colonel 
Gardner an Irishman, and General Avitabile a 
Neapolitan, a name still remembered in terror by 
the wild robber tribes, whose raids he punished 
with relentless severity ; certain frontier villages 
having been granted to him rent free on condition 
that he annually delivered fifty Afridi heads to the 
Lion of Lahore. 

Ranjit Singh wisely resolved to live in peace with 
the Company, being far-seeing enough to know that 
the Khalsa could not prevail against its forces. 
Even in 1809, when the Governor-General, Lord 
Minto, decided to take the Cis-Sutlej chieftains 



248 LORD HARD1NGE. 

under English protection, Ranjit Singh bowed his 
head and strove no longer to extend his supremacy 
beyond the Sutlej. Until his death in 1839 he 
remained the friend and faithful ally of the 
British Government. 

Baron Hiigel gives a strange account of a con- 
versation he held with Ranjit Singh respecting the 
rival forces. " ' You have seen divisions of all my 
troops/ observed Ranjit Singh to me, ' tell me what 
you think of them.' I answered that what I had seen 
exceeded anything that I could have anticipated. 
He still pressed for a more definite answer, and I 
continued, ' The world knows what these troops have 
done for you. The answer to your question has 
been given by your cannon from Ladak to Multan, ■ 
from the Sutlej to the heart of Afghanistan.' ' You 
evade my question,' said Ranjit Singh. I answered 
that he was a much better judge of soldiers than I. 
' Tell me,' he persisted, ' what you think of my troops 
compared with those of the East India Company?' 
' You require me to do so ? ' ' Yes,' he said. My 
attendant had on an imitation Kashmir shawl of 
mine, while one of his suite wore a genuine and 
very beautiful one. I showed him both, saying, 
' This is genuine, the other is imitation — which of the 
two is the best ? ' He looked at me, and said, after 
a short pause, ' You have expressed my own opinion, 
but do you believe that a battalion of my army could 
engage with one of the Company's battalions?' 'My 
answer is already given in my last question — I do 
not.'". 

On the death of Ranjit Singh, the master hand 



THE K HALS A. 24.Q 

that had held in check the surging forces of 
fanaticism, ever, latent in the Khalsa, was withdrawn. 
At Lahore the usual struggle for supremacy took 
place. Legitimate descendants of the Lion of Lahore 
were assassinated, leaving impostors and soldiers 
of fortune to fight amongst themselves. At length 
Jindan, a favourite wife of Ranjit Singh, succeeded 
in having her son Dhulip Singh, an infant of five years 
of age, proclaimed Maharaja, while the real power 
remained in the hands of her brother, Jowahir Singh, 
and her lover, a good-looking Brahman. The army 
daily gained power, dismissed their foreign officers, 
Avitabile and Court, and nominated as their repre- 
sentatives a Council of five delegates. 

This army, under Tej Singh its Commander-in-Chief, 
had grown during the six years succeeding the death 
of Ranjit Singh, so that it numbered over 70,000 in 
1845, more than double what it was in 1839. To keep 
this vast army in pay and to prevent it growing 
mutinous, it had been despatched to attack Gulab 
Singh at Jammu and also against the Governor of 
Multan. Everything warned the Governor-General 
to be prepared, for to all it was evident that the time 
must soon come when the Khalsa in its folly would 
encroach on English territory. Avitabile and Court, 
foreseeing danger, fled, and took refuge in the 
Company's dominions. Sir Henry Hardinge moved 
up troops to the frontier — a course objected to by 
the Khalsa, an objection carefully fomented by the 
regency at Lahore, who saw their safety best secured 
by diverting the attention of its army from the capital. 
In November, 1845, the Khalsa numbering 60,000 



25O LORD HARD1NGE. 

soldiers, with 40,000 camp-followers and 150 guns 
crossed the Sutlej and advanced to Firozshah, where 
they entrenched themselves under Lai Singh, sending 
forward a division to Mudki to attack the advancing 
British troops. An obstinate fight ensued on the 
19th of December, the Sikh and British infantry 
being about equal in number, the Sikh cavalry 
however, exceeded ours fully twenty times. The 
English captured seventeen guns, but lost nine 
hundred men killed and wounded, including Major- 
General Sir Robert Sale, the defender of Jalalabad. 

On December 21st the Governor-General and Sir 
Hugh Gough advanced against the main army, 
entrenched at Firozshah, about ten miles from Mudki 
where Sir J. Littler joined Sir Hugh Gough with over 
5,000 men and 24 guns, thus increasing the British 
force to 16,700 men and 68 guns. The Governor- 
General volunteered as second in command. 

The Khalsa, numbering from 30,000 to 70,000 men. 
remained behind their entrenchments, which extended 
a mile long and half a mile broad, with the village of 
Firozshah in their centre. Never before in the annals 
of Indian history was there fought a battle so momen- 
tous and critical, and never before was the dogged 
perseverance of British soldiers and fierce valour of 
Sikh infantry so conspicuously displayed. The 
British army was in position by 3 p.m., and as the 
advance took place the Sikh artillery opened fire at a 
distance of three hundred yards. The Governor- 
General in a letter gives the details of the opening of 
the conflict in the following words : " The batteries 
were carried by our brave British Infantry. Sir John 



THE FOUR BATTLES. 25 I 

Littler told me H.M.'s 62nd gave way when almost in 
the battery, but what is the fact? One hundred and 
eighty-five men were killed and wounded in ten minutes 
by grape and canister, and can he or any other officer 
be surprised that boys, who never before heard a ball 
whistle should turn back ?" All day long the stubborn 
fight continued, and when night fell there came no 
peace to the weary, cold, and thirsty soldiers. The 
Governor-General, in a letter to Sir Robert Peel, 
describes the weird scene which the battle-field dis- 
closed. " A burning camp in our front, our brave 
fellows lying down under a heavy cannonade, which 
continued during the whole of the night, mixed with 
the wild cries of the Sikhs, our English hurrah, the 
tramp of men, and the groans of the dying." In the 
English camp there was talk of retreat ; amid the 
Sikhs there were rumours of treachery, for some of 
their horsemen were riding hard for the Sutlej, and 
the treasury had been plundered. In the grey morning 
the British soldiers, without food or water, their fingers 
numbed with cold, seized their muskets, and again the 
long, stubborn fight commenced. The Sikhs were at 
length driven from their position with the loss of 
103 pieces of cannon, but the British force lost 
2,415 killed and wounded, including 103 officers. 
The wearied troops with their ammunition expended 
would have been glad to rest with the field dearly 
won, but the cavalry outposts galloped up and 
announced the advance of Tej Singh from Firozpur, 
with a fresh Sikh army of some twenty thousand 
infantry, five thousand cavalry, and seventy guns. 
Between the retreating Sikhs and the British army 



2 $2 LORD HARDING&. 

Tej Singh drew up his troops, and his artillery opened 
fire, which the English guns without ammunition were 
unable to answer. Gallantly the exhausted British 
cavalry — the 3rd Dragoons — charged into the midst 
of the Sikhs, and their very weight drove before them 
the lighter horsemen. Tej Singh at once abandoned 
the field, left behind him seventy-three guns, and 
followed the main force towards the Sutlej. Whether 
Tej Singh retreated from prudence, cowardice, or 
treachery, is unknown ; the fierce fight was over, and 
once again the Company had triumphed, having 
defeated the boldest and bravest troops that had yet 
faced it in the East. 

The Sikh army, under Tej Singh, retreated to a 
strong position on the right bank of the Sutlej, below 
its junction with the Beas, and there, skilfully en- 
trenched, constructed a pontoon bridge across the 
river to secure retreat. 

In the meantime Sir Harry Smith had driven a 
formidable body of the Khalsa from Alfwal across the 
Sutlej, and inflicted on them another terrible loss. 
The 1 6th Lancers, followed by the 3rd Light Native 
Cavalry, charged through the Sikh square of infantry, 
and the discomfited foe fled. They left their guns and 
stores on the field of battle, and in their endeavours to 
cross the river numbers were drowned or else slain 
by the artillery which opened fire on them from the 
banks. 

. Sir Harry Smith, proud of his victory, which in his 
report he described as "one of the most glorious 
victories ever achieved in India by the united effort 
of Her Majesty's and the Honourable Company's 



THE FOUR BATTLES. 253 

troops," joined the Commander-in-Chief, and the united 
forces closed round the formidable Sikh entrench- 
ments at Sobraon, where thirty thousand of the 
best fighting men of the Khalsa, supported by 
seventy heavy cannons, awaited the attack. 

On the morning of the ioth of February, 1846, the 
Bengal Home Artillery galloped forward to within 
three hundred yards of the Sikh entrenchments 
which swept in a semicircle round a bend in the 
river Sutlej. The infantry followed, and soon the 
conflict raged, centre, right, and left. No Sikh gave 
or sought quarter ; fiercely the British troops were 
driven back from their batteries, the 1 s.t European 
Regiment alone losing 197 men out of their reduced 
strength of 400, twelve of their officers being killed 
or disabled. It was not, as Sir Hugh Gough in his 
despatch writes, "until the Cavalry of the left, under 
Major-General Sir Joseph Thackwell, had moved 
forward and ridden through the openings in the 
entrenchments made by our sappers, in single file, 
and reformed as they passed them, and the 3rd 
Dragoons, whom no obstacle usually held formidable 
by horse, appears to check, had on this day, as at 
Firozshah, galloped over and cut down the obstinate 
defenders of batteries and field works, and until the 
full weight of three divisions of Infantry, with every 
field artillery gun which could be sent to their aid, 
had been cast into the scale, that victory finally 
declared for the British. The fire of the Sikhs first 
slackened, and then nearly ceased, and the victors 
then pressing them on every side, precipitated them 
in masses over their bridge and into the Sutlej, which 



254 LORD HARDINGE. 

a sudden rise of iy inches had rendered hardly 
fordable. In their efforts to reach the right bank 
through the deepened water they suffered from our 
horse artillery a terrible carnage. Hundreds fell 
under this cannonade, hundreds upon hundreds were 
drowned in attempting the perilous passage. Their 
awful slaughter, confusion and dismay, were such as 
would have excited compassion in the hearts of their 
conquerors, if the Khalsa troops had not, in the 
earlier part of the action, sullied their gallantry by 
slaughtering and barbarously mangling every wounded 
soldier, whom, in the vicissitudes of attack, the fortune 
of war left at their mercy." 

The four great Sikh battles, Mudki, Firozshah, 
Ah'wal and Sobraon, were over. On the 18th of 
February the Governor-General was met by the Maha- 
raja Dhulip Singh, a child of eight years, and Gulab 
Singh, the Minister, and at Lahore, in full darbar a 
treaty of peace was signed. By this the Sikh army 
was reduced to twenty-four thousand men and fifty 
guns, the territories between the Beas and the Sutlej 
were ceded to the English, and I J millions sterling 
demanded as indemnity for the expenses of the war ; 
lands including Kashmir being made over to Gulab 
Singh on payment of ,£750,000. The Koh-i-nur 
diamond was produced from a tin box delivered over 
to John Lawrence — who for a time lost it — for 
transmission to the Queen of England. A British 
force of nine thousand men with a Resident, Major 
Henry Lawrence, of the Bengal Artillery, was to remain 
at Lahore for a year, a period afterwards extended, to 
support the authority of the Maharaja Dhulip Singh : 



VANS AGNEW AND ANDERSON. 255 

Lai Singh was appointed Prime Minister, and Tej 
Singh Commander-in-Chief of the reduced Sikh force. 

Raja Lai Singh, the Queen-Mother's lover, did not 
long hold his power ; found guilty of conspiring to 
prevent the delivery of Kashmir to the new Governor, 
Gulab Singh, he was banished from the Punjab, not- 
withstanding the entreaties and tears of the Queen- 
Mother. As the result, the English troops were 
retained in the Punjab for eight years, and a Council 
of Regency with Henry Lawrence as Resident, was 
appointed to act during the minority of the infant 
Maharaja. 

The Land of the Five Rivers was at length at rest, 
and when Lord Hardinge left for England in 1848, 
and Lord Dalhousie succeeded it was confidently 
hoped that a long period of peace was in store for the 
Company. 

Lord Dalhousie, however, had not been six months 
in the country before the news came that a second 
Sikh war was close at hand. Mulraj, the Sikh 
Governor of the important city of Multan, in the 
middle valley of the Indus, had offered to resign 
sooner than give an account of his stewardship to Sir 
Frederick Currie, Resident at Lahore during the 
absence of Henry Lawrence: Mr. Vans Agnew of 
the Civil Service, and Lieutenant Anderson, assistants 
to the Resident, were despatched to receive the 
resignation of Mulraj and to take charge of the 
city fortress. All went well, until suddenly, as the 
two officers were riding through the city gates, they 
were attacked, severely wounded, and only saved from 
death by being borne away by their slender escort to 



256 LORD HARDINGE. 

a Muhammadan mosque, unfortunately commanded by 
the guns of the fort which now opened fire on the 
defenceless Englishmen. A fanatical crowd pressed 
near, the mosque was entered where Lieutenant 
Anderson lay on a cot unable to move, his hand held 
by Vans Agnew, himself sorely wounded. 

Calmly they met their fate, " foretelling the day 
when thousands of Englishmen should come to 
avenge their death and destroy Mulraj, his army, 
and fortress." 

The news was carried to the nearest English 
officer, Lieutenant Herbert Edwardes, then engaged 
in pacifying the Bannu district. Gathering together 
some hastily raised Pathans, he marched against 
Mulraj, whom he drove back into the fortress of Multan. 
In vain Herbert Edwardes appealed to the Commander- 
in-Chief for aid, for guns, and a mortar battery with 
which he might lay low the fortress. Lord Gough 
refused to move troops so far during the hot weather, 
and Edwardes was left alone to bay at Mulraj during 
the long summer months of 1848. The revolt spread 
far and wide ; the Khalsa once more panted to meet 
the English troops, and down through the Khaibar 
Pass swarmed the Afghans, for once having forgotten 
their religious feud in their longing to unite with the 
Sikhs, and drive their common foe from the Punjab 
and regain possession of Peshawar. 

The Queen-Mother, detected in her intrigues 
against the English, was sent from Lahore to 
Benares. Lord Gough now found that instead of 
a revolt at M'ultan he had the whole army of the 
Khalsa to deal with. From Sind, Bombay, and 



LORD GOUGH. 2 $7 

Firozpur, troops were hurried towards the Punjab, 
Lord Dalhousie publicly declaring on October 5, 
1848, that if the Sikhs want war "they shall have 
it with a vengeance." 

It was not until January, 1849, that Multan fell 
before the continued assaults of seventeen thousand 
troops under General Whish, after forty thousand 
shell and shot had poured into it from seventy heavy 
cannon. 

For Lord Gough the campaign opened disastrously : 
in an ill-advised and precipitate attack on the 
enemy's position at Ramnagar he lost one of his 
guns and some of his best officers, including Colonels 
Havelock and Cureton. Angry at his reverse, Lord 
Gough did not wait for the troops from Multan to 
join him, but determined to force an action on the 
Sikhs who now occupied a strong position at Chilian- 
wala, its front covered with thick jungle interspersed 
with ponds and swamps through which it was im- 
possible for either infantry or cavalry to advance in 
order. Lord Gough commenced the battle with his 
usual tactics. The infantry were ordered to advance 
and capture the enemy's guns at the point of the 
bayonet. In its efforts to gain the Sikh guns, the 24th 
Foot lost its colours, 23 officers, and 459 men. Gilbert's 
division was outflanked by the enemy, while the 
3rd Dragoons, who had ridden forward at a trot, 
wheeled round in obedience to a mistaken order, and 
retired before the Sikh horse which rode through 
the artillery and captured four guns. Darkness put 
an end to the terrible day of disaster, and though the 
Sikhs were forced back, the Commander-in-Chief 

18 



258 LORD HARDINGE. 

lost 89 of his officers, and 2,337 men were left on 
the field of battle wounded or dead. When the news 
reached home, Lord Gough was recalled, and Sir 
Charles Napier hurriedly despatched to succeed him 
as Commander-in-Chief. 

It was not until eight days after the battle of Chilian- 
wala, that Multan was captured, and General Whish 
released to join Lord Gough with over 9,000 of his men. 
On the 20th of February the armies faced each other 
for the last time in Indian history. The Sikhs, to 
the number of some 50,000, were strongly posted 
in front of the fortified town of Gujrat with sixty 
cannon. The English, about 20,000 faced them. 
For two hours and a half the ninety English guns 
played incessantly on the Sikh artillery, and not 
until it was silenced did the infantry and cavalry 
advance, and drive before them the Khalsa, which fled 
in dismay, having left behind fifty-three guns, its 
standards, ammunition, tents, and stores. General 
Gilbert, with a light force of 12,000 horse and foot, 
chased the retreating foe across the Punjab, and on 
March 12, 1849, the last cannon was surrendered 
at Rawal Pindi, where the remaining Sikh soldiers 
came forward and delivered up their arms. 

The Punjab, over one and a half times the area 
of England and Wales, was at the mercy of Lord 
Dalhousie, and he determined to annex it. The 
Maharaja Dhulip Singh, who died an exile in 1893, 
was allowed a pension of £12,000 a year, increased to 
one of £15,000 in 1856, and to £25,000 in 1862. A 
Board, consisting of Henry Lawrence, John Lawrence, 
and Charles Greville Mansel, was formed for the 



"BOARDS RARELY HAVE ANY TALENT." 259 

administration of the new provinces — a system of 
government which drew from Sir Charles Napier 
the criticism, " Boards rarely have any talent," with 
the caustic remark that the Punjab Board formed no 
exception to the general rule. The Board was finally 
dissolved in 1852, and John Lawrence left as Chief 
Commissioner to loyally serve under the iron rule of 
Lord Dalhousie, by whom the Sikh army was dis- 
solved, the great chieftains shorn of their power and 
authority, the people disarmed and enabled, under a 
lenient revenue system and freedom from an oppres- 
sive taxation, to settle down to a peaceable life, free 
from all danger of revolution or external violence, 
so that when the Mutiny burst over the north of 
India, the Punjab stood firm and its soldiers rode 
forth to fight loyally and willingly for their foreign 
rulers. 




XIV. 



THE MUTINY. 



THE last great wave of conquest after having over- 
lapped, in its onward course, the mountain barriers of 
Afghanistan, receded to leave the limits of British 
rule firmly established over the Land of the Five 
Rivers. 

The first great wave on which Clive rose supreme 
had swept in gradually from the sea, slowly crept 
along the littoral tracts down on the rich alluvial 
plains of Bengal, on towards Lucknow, whence it 
retreated but to gain strength for its second advance 
not fifty years later, in the days of the Marquess 
Wellesley. Pausing for a moment in its new-grown 
power, it then suddenly burst forth far and wide, 
overwhelmed the hosts of Haidar All and Tipu 
Sultan, dashed from before its path the fierce 
Maratha. foemen, enfolded within its embraces the 
royal cities of Agra and Delhi, and bore away amid 
its seething waters the feeble Mughal Emperor and 
the proud Peshwa of Poona. 

The third great wave of conquest, in the days of 
Lord Dalhousie, spread over one-third more of India. 



260 




1/1 

oo 



a © 

O "C 
< 5 



is 



262 THE MUTINY. 

The Punjab was conquered and annexed, and the 
overweening insolence of the Burmese humbled, 
Tenasserim, Arakan, and Assam seized, thus leaving 
open the road up the river to Ava. 

The many other annexations of Lord Dalhousie 
were the result of local and political causes, each of 
which must form its own justification for the course 
pursued. The keynote to the policy had been struck 
in 1803, when the Raja of Coorg was deposed and 
pensioned by Lord William Bentinck on account of 
fiendish cruelty and misgovernment, his state in 
Mysore annexed, its inhabitants placed under British 
protection, and assured that never more would they 
have a native ruler placed over them. In Lord 
Dalhousie's time it became inevitable that Oudh, the 
richest garden of India, should be similarly dealt 
with. 

Cliye, on acquiring the Diwani of Bengal, Behar, 
and Orissa, had been content to enter into an alliance 
and treaty of friendship with the rulers of Oudh, to 
whom the advice of the Company was administered 
through a Resident stationed at Lucknow, the capital. 

The administration was carried on by the Nawab 
Wazir's own native officers, but the Company was 
virtually responsible for holding the state secure 
from invasion and free from internal revolution. It 
was impossible that such a system could work for 
long without showing its inherent weakness. The 
Nawab Wazi'r, or, as he was afterwards styled, the 
King of Oudh, freed from all restraint and responsi- 
bility, and relieved from danger of revolt on the part 
of his subjects, gradually sank into depraved de- 



ANNEXATION OF OUDH. 263 

bauchery. With listless indifference he viewed the 
misrule which spread over the country, where the 
strong and callous rose to power, the weak and 
helpless became slaves to the greed and lust of tax- 
collectors and local magnates, and those alone re- 
mained secure from the barbarities of marauding 
bands and exactions of their rulers who entrenched 
themselves behind the mud walls of their villages. 

Lord Wellesley declared in. 1801 that nothing 
could save the dominions of Oudh from utter ruin 
save the control of the entire civil and military 
authority by the Company. In 1831 Lord William 
Bentinck threatened to depose the King unless the 
affairs of the State were amended. In 1837 Lord 
Auckland drew the attention of the King to the 
wilful oppression, anarchy, and insecurity which pre- 
vailed in his dominions, and declared his intention 
of assuming the management of the country if the 
misrule did not cease — a proceeding which, if carried 
out, might have obviated the necessity of annexation. 

The disapproval by the Court of Directors of this 
policy, though communicated to Lord Auckland, was, 
however, not conveyed to the King by the Governor- 
General. In 1847 Lord Hardinge, in soldier-like 
language, informed the King that if within two years 
the administration was not reformed, the duty of the 
British would be to assume the government itself. 

Colonel Sleeman was despatched to make a pro- 
longed journey through Oudh, and reported, in 185 1, 
that " great crimes stain almost every acre of land in 
his dominions, neither age nor sex nor condition are 
spared." He further reported that " the soil is good 



264 THE MUTINY. 

and the surface everywhere capable of tillage, with 
little labour or outlay " ; and " that five years of good 
government would make it one of the most beautiful 
parterres in nature." In his opinion " the only alter- 
native left appears to be for the paramount power to 
take upon itself the administration " ; and if this were 
done "at least nine-tenths of the people of Oudh 
would hail the change as a great blessing." In 1854 
Colonel Outram made a full report on the anarchy 
that prevailed, the vile life of the King, and the misery 
of the unprotected cultivators, seventy-eight of whose 
villages were on an average yearly burned and 
plundered, the inhabitants tortured, slain, or sold into 
slavery. His opinion was that " in upholding the 
sovereign power of this effete incapable dynasty, we 
do so at the cost of five millions of people." Yet he 
wrote more in pain than in anger, for " I have ever 
advocated the maintenance of the few remaining 
native states in India so long as they retain any prin- 
ciple of vitality, and we can uphold them consistently 
with our duty as the permanent power in India, and 
in accordance with our treaty pledges." 

In 1855 the Court of Directors finally decided that 
the annexation of Oudh should be carried out by 
Lord Dalhousie, who, on the 13th of February, 1856, 
recorded that, " in humble reliance on the blessing 
of the Almighty (for millions of His creatures will 
draw happiness from the change), I approach the 
execution of this duty gravely and not without 
solicitude, but calmly and altogether without doubt." 
The King Wajid All received a pension of ;£ 120,000 
a year, and after appealing in vain through a mission 



THE DOCTRINE OF LAPSE. 265 

to England against the sentence, withdrew from 
Oudh and took up his residence in Calcutta. 

The further annexations of Lord Dalhousie were 
deliberately carried out because he considered they 
were not only expedient but just. 

To every Hindu it is necessary that there should 
be a son, real or adoptive, to carry out the funeral 
rites enjoined by his religion as obligatory for the 
salvation of his soul after death. The adopted son, 
whether nominated by the deceased or appointed 
with his consent by his widow, has an undoubted 
right under Hindu law to succeed to the private 
property of his father by adoption, but without the 
consent of the paramount power the adopted son has 
no inherent right to succeed to the dependent ruler- 
ship or chieftainship of his adoptive father's terri- 
tories. If the paramount power refuse to recognise 
the adoption the estate lapses by default to the 
paramount power. 

Satara was the first state to which Lord Dalhousie 
applied the doctrine of lapse. 

After the Maratha war of 1818, when the power of 
the Peshwa was broken in pieces, a portion of his 
territories was bestowed on the last descendant of 
Sivaji, who was taken from prison and nominated Raja 
of Satara with the succession continued to his " sons, 
heirs, and successors." 

In 1839 the Raja was deposed and his brother 
installed in the chieftainship. To the brother there 
were no heirs, but in his last moments he adopted a 
son. The Court of Directors thereupon decided, in 
accordance with the opinion of the Governor-General, 



266 THE MUTINY. 

that " we are fully satisfied that by the general law 
and custom of India a dependent principality like 
that of Satara cannot pass to an adopted heir without 
the consent of the paramount power ; that we are 
under no pledge, direct or- constructive, to give such 
consent ; and that the general interests committed to 
our charge are best considered by withholding it." 
Accordingly Satara was annexed, and this policy 
was consistently followed out by Lord Dalhousie in 
other cases where he deemed that the establishment 
of a permanent British rule would be more conducive 
to the happiness and welfare of the people than a 
native government. 

It was not until after the Mutiny that Lord 
Canning formally proclaimed that this policy of 
annexation was finally abandoned, that all friendly 
chiefs would be allowed for the future to pass on 
their succession to adopted sons. 

Another annexation made by Lord Dalhousie was 
that of the wild hill country to the south-west of 
Bengal known as Sambalpur, which lapsed to the 
Company on the death of its ruler, who had declined 
to accept an heir. 

The next case the Governor-General had to deal 
with was the Maratha state of Jhansi, ceded by the 
Peshwa in 1817, which had gone through a period of 
disorder and misrule during the chieftainship of its 
first two rulers. When the Raja died in 1853, leaving 
no male heirs, Lord Dalhousie refused to acknowledge 
the right of the adopted son, took possession of the 
estate, and granted to the enraged widow a pension 
for her maintenance — a proceeding which implanted 



NANA SAHIB. ' l6j 

in her the seeds of an undying hatred and treasured 
store of vengeance against the British Government, 
which she poured forth unrelentingly during her 
short but brilliant career in the Mutiny. 

Many other minor states were similarly annexed, 
the most important being Nagpur, a tract now form- 
ing four-fifths of the Central provinces, with 113,279 
square miles of territory, and a population of twelve 
millions of people. 

In the south the old title of Nawab, or local 
Governor of the Emperors at Delhi, was allowed to 
lapse on the death, in 1855, of the last holder without 
heirs, an uncle, Azim Jah, being given an allowance 
ultimately fixed at £30,000 a year. 

The most noted, and the most ill-fated, of all Lord 
Dalhousie's acts, was the withdrawal of the pension 
of £80,000 a year from Nana Sahib, the adopted son 
of Baji Rao, " the last of the Peshwas." On the 
death of Baji Rao, Nana Sahib obtained the fortune 
left by his father by adoption, and the estate he had 
lived on at Bithur, but he was deprived of the 
Peshwa's life pension. Nana Sahib sent emissaries to 
England, and fomented intrigues far and wide. 
What part he took in the Mutiny will never be 
fully known, except as far as it is certain that he was 
responsible for the massacre of Cawnpur. 

Well might Lord Dalhousie write as, on the 
journey home, he surveyed the changes which had 
come over India in his days : " During the eight 
years over which we now look back the British terri- 
tories in the East have been largely increased. 
Within that time four kingdoms have passed under 



268 THE MUTINY. 

the sceptre of the Queen of England, and various 
chieftainships and separate tracts have been brought 
under her sway." 

Many greater changes than these Lord Dalhousie 
lived to see before he left India, and many more he 
knew were soon to come. In 1853 his famous Rail- 
way Minute clearly indicated the main lines on 
which the great system of railways has been ex- 
tended in India by public companies working under 
a State guarantee. 

In 1854 Sir C. Wood, afterwards Lord Halifax, 
drafted the despatch which set forth a new scheme 
of State education in India, according to which the 
vernacular languages, and neither English nor the 
classical languages, were to be the main channel for 
the instruction of the native population. 

The introduction of the telegraph and half-anna 
postage was to the bewildered gaze of the old-fashioned 
conservative native a sign that a new era had dawned 
on the East, and that for good or evil the old would 
soon pass away. The time seemed already drawing 
nigh when the habits, customs, and even religion of 
the foreigners might supersede the very principles on 
which the whole fabric of social law and order of the 
land had for long ages been patiently, if somewhat 
fantastically, built up by the cunning hands of the 
priestly guides, the Brahman hierarchy, men held 
sacred, honoured as possessed of secret lore, and as 
the hereditary custodians of all the revealed ordi- 
nances of the Divine Creator. 

Round about throbbed the deepest emotions which 
could sway the whole life of a people. To the 



THE SEPOYS. 269 

natives the coming and going of their rulers mattered 
not ; they lived in a land accustomed for long cen- 
turies past to ever-changing scenes of continuous 
strife and warfare, to the rise and fall of principalities 
and empires, all more splendid in their barbaric pomp 
and wealth than the strong iron rule of the British. 
Even nature itself was ever restless, storms, famines, 
and pestilence arising sudden amid profound calm 
and quiet, to rage to and fro and then pass away 
leaving the stillness of death behind. The people 
had long learned to bow their heads before the con- 
quering hands of their invaders, and the swift, sudden 
vengeance of their many gods, who dwelt far away in 
the changing heavens or abode near at hand in the 
sacred groves, and on the thresholds of their homes. 
Amid all changes the village life remained unaltered : 
the cultivator heeded not the passing wave of con- 
quest, the village folk still listened to the legendary 
tales of old, they still held to the customs and occu- 
pations of their forefathers, and the power of the 
Brahmans held sway. 

So long as no more than the customary amount of 
taxation was exacted it mattered not much who 
ruled the land. Of national life, national feeling, 
there is even now but little ; the people of India are 
divided from one another v by race, language, and 
sentiment even more than are the Russian, German, 
French, Italian, English, from one another in the 
West 

For one hundred years the inhabitants of the land 
had watched unmoved the growth of the English 
power. The rule of the Mughal Emperor had faded 



2^0 THE MUTINY. 

away, the last representative lived in obscurity in his 
palace at Delhi, surrounded by a few retainers, and 
the order of the Governor-General had gone forth that 
on his death the child of his favourite wife would be 
removed from Delhi, the imperial city of his fore- 
fathers, and deprived of the title and dignity of King. 
From the time when Clive defended Arcot native 
troops had fought willingly under the command of 
the English. When Siraj-ud-Daula sealed his fate 
by the outrage of the Black Hole of Calcutta, Clive 
brought with him from Madras, where there were ten 
thousand sepoys, two well-drilled battalions to aid 
the English troops, then but some nine hundred in 
number. Eight years afterwards the English had 
disciplined nineteen battalions of Bengal sepoys, each 
battalion one thousand strong. Assured of the 
loyalty of these native troops, the rulers would keep 
in check the disbanded troopers and Talukdars, 
hereditary rent-collectors or landlords of Oudh ; 
they could enforce the decisions of the I nam Com- 
missions, who had in a few years examined the titles 
and confiscated three-fifths of thirty-five thousand 
estates for want of title — estates granted to the 
holders by former native rulers for services rendered 
without any formal record ; they could neglect the 
brooding hate of the heir to the throne of the 
Peshwas and silent wrath of the widowed Rani of 
Jhansi, deem that the fierce soldiers of Holkar and 
Sindhia would cease to dream of lawless rapine and 
deeds of bravery, that men whose fortunes had been 
carved out by the sword would rejoice when naught 
was left them to fight for, Through all the sepoy 



PREVIOUS MUTINIES. 27 1 

would stand firm so long as his pay, his caste, his 
hereditary habits and religious sentiments were left 
untouched, but in defence of these he had often 
shown how calmly he could sacrifice even his life. 

In 1764, when on the eve of the battle of Baksar 
the prize-money demanded by the English troops 
was withheld from the sepoys in proportions they 
considered their due, their native officers came forth 
and openly declared that their troops would not fight 
in the coming battle. Four tall grenadiers, who had 
often led their comrades in many an action, and held 
as a right the foremost post in hours of peril, now 
stepped forward and claimed the privilege of dying 
first of those condemned to death for mutiny. They 
were tied to guns and blown to pieces. Twenty-four 
of the sepoys had the same retribution meted out to 
them by the unflinching command of Major Hector 
Munro, who knew the danger that lurked beneath 
rebellion not speedily repressed. 

At Vellore, in 1806, the sepoys, roused by insults 
and childish repressions, again rose in mutiny, 
murdered their officers and the European soldiers 
quartered in the fort, only to fall themselves, slain 
beneath the sabres of Gillespie's dragoons. The same 
note of warning had again and again been sounded ; 
the sepoys stolidly and consistently showing that, 
willing as they were to fight for the English, they 
would not tamely brook interference with their 
cherished rights, habits, and beliefs. 

The 47th had been mowed down rather than sail 
across the black waters during the first Burmese war ; 
the 34th had been struck off the army list sooner than 



272 THE MUTINY. 

march to Sind without receiving extra allowance ; 
the 66th had been disbanded for refusing to serve in 
the Punjab without extra pay. Lord Dalhousie had 
to acknowledge the right of the 38th to refuse to 
embark for service in Arakan during the second 
Burmese war, while Lord Canning found, to his 
surprise, that nine-twelfths of the whole Bengal army 
could absolutely refuse to serve beyond the seas. 

Sir Charles Napier resigned his office as Com- 
mander-in-Chief when Lord Dalhousie refused to 
acknowledge the necessity for exceptional treatment 
of the troops in the Punjab. The Governor-General 
at the time wrote as follows : " There is no justifica- 
tion for the cry that India was in danger. Free from 
all threats of hostilities from without, and secure, 
through the submission of its new subjects, from 
insurrection within, the safety of India has never for 
one moment been imperilled by the partial insubordi- 
nation in the ranks of the army." This view was sup- 
ported by the Duke of Wellington in his memorandum 
on the matter : " A close examination of the papers 
sent to me by Sir Charles Napier himself, with his 
report of the transaction, convinced me that there was 
no mutiny of the troops at Wazirabad in December, 
1849, and January, 1850. There were murmurings 
and complaints, but no mutiny. But it appears, 
according to Sir Charles Napier's statement, that 
there existed in the country a general mutiny, which 
pervaded the whole army of 40,000 men in the 
Punjab in the month of January, 1850." 

Vigorous and triumphant as the policy of Lord 
Dalhousie was there were not a few who saw the 



CHRISTIANITY. 2?$ 

elements of danger in the rapid changes that had 
taken place during his administration. A period of 
rest was needed to allow both the people and their 
rulers to determine to what extent the ideals and 
principles of Western progress and development 
might with advantage and safety be introduced into 
the East. Lord Palmers ton had, in 1855, expressed 
a hope not unlonged for by many, when, at the banquet 
given by the Court of Directors, he announced that 
" perhaps it might be our lot to confer on the count- 
less millions of India a higher and nobler gift than 
any mere human knowledge" — a gift that, with a 
fervour rising above criticism, English officers had 
endeavoured to induce their sepoys to accept. " I 
have been in the habit," declared an English officer 
in 1857, "of speaking to natives of all classes, sepoys 
and others, making no distinction, since there is no 
respect of persons with God, on the subject of our 
religion, in the highways, cities, bazaars, and villages 
— not in the lines and regimental bazaars. I have 
done this from a conviction that every converted 
Christian is expected, or rather commanded by the 
Scriptures, to make known the glad tidings of salva- 
tion to his fellow creatures." 

Many more forcible instances might be given of 
commanders and administrators seeking to spread 
abroad the faith in which they found their surest 
solace in this world and firmest hopes of a hereafter, 
were it not for the fact that it is absolutely impossible 
that any scheme devised for the conversion of the 
natives of India to Christianity could affect their feel- 
ings of good or ill-will. 

19 



274 THE MUTINY. 

To the majority of the natives of India, who are 
still sunk in superstition, animism, and fetishism, the 
subject of religion, as apart from social observances, 
has but little meaning or interest, while for the 
educated class all discussion on the subject is received 
with open-minded candour, so long as no effort is 
made to interfere with their customs and social 
ordinances. 

Thus the law proposed by Lord Dalhousie and 
passed by Lord Canning to encourage the remarriage 
of Hindu widows, a law striving to alter a custom 
founded on religious sentiment, was destined to 
remain a dead letter and of but little practical 
importance. 

There were dangers, far deeper and independent 
of these, known to all men, yet when they came 
those who had watched their growth were unprepared 
to meet them. In February, 1856, Dalhousie had 
spoken warning words in Calcutta with reference to the 
Santal insurrection when he said, " No prudent men 
having any knowledge of Eastern affairs would ever 
venture to predict a prolonged continuance of peace 
in India — insurrection may rise like an exhalation 
from the earth, and cruel violence worse than all the 
excesses of war, may be suddenly committed by men 
who to the very day on which they broke out in their 
frenzy of blood, have been regarded as a simple 
harmless and timid race." In August, 1855, Lord 
Canning, at the farewell banquet given by the 
Directors, sent his hearers away wondering at the 
solemnity of his words, as he gave warning that 
"We must not forget that in the sky of India, serene 



THE NATIVE ARMY. 2?$ 

as it is, a small cloud may arise, at first no bigger 
than a man's hand, but which growing bigger and 
bigger may at last threaten to overwhelm us with 
ruin." 

When Lord Canning reached India he found there 
were but 45,332 European troops to 233,000 sepoys, 
and 12,000 native gunners to 6,500 European, while 
for the 750 miles stretching from Barrackpur to Agra, 
there was only one European regiment at Dinapur. 

Lord Dalhousie's remonstrances, minutes, and warn- 
ings had been neglected, two European regiments 
had been withdrawn for service in the Crimea, and 
not replaced ; others had been sent to the Persian 
Gulf under Sir James Outram to force the Shah to 
retire from Herat. 

Strange stories came from the Crimea : it was 
rumoured that the English had been defeated by the 
Czar, who was now prepared to invade India. A 
proclamation was posted on the walls of the Jumma 
Musjid at Delhi, in which all true Muhammadans 
were called upon to be ready to join an army, soon to 
be sent by the Shah of Persia to restore the true faith 
and drive the English out of India. Among the people 
it was whispered that it had been prophesied of old 
that a white race should rule for one hundred years 
in the sacred land of India, and that now the days 
were numbered up since the field of Plassey. Rumours 
of change flew with winged speed. All men knew that 
strange things were happening of which they hesitated 
to speak ; midnight meetings of the sepoys were 
followed by sudden and sullen disrespect towards 
their officers. Nana Sahib was passing to and fro from 



276 THE MUTINY. 

Bithur to Kalpi, to Delhi and Lucknow. A learned 
Mulvi from Faizabad in Oudh had journeyed through 
Delhi, Meerut, Patna, and Calcutta, preaching sedition, 
deftly weaving the hidden threads of a widespread 
conspiracy before the very eyes of the English 
officers, who smiled at the superstitious ways of the 
people who were sending Chapatis, or small pieces of 
unleavened bread, from village to village, none know- 
ing why or by whose order, but all feeling that some 
strange secret was abroad in their midst. 

Louder grew the rumours ; the sepoys spoke out 
their fears that the English desired to break down 
their laws of caste and customs so that they might 
sail over the seas and conquer the world. All might 
have passed without history knowing of the strange 
story were it not that the whole edifice of folly was 
crowned by a stupendous blunder, fraught with fatal 
consequences. 

The old " Brown Bess " musket had been discarded 
for the English rifle, which required specially greased 
cartridges. Some cartridges had been sent out from 
England, some were manufactured at Calcutta and 
at Meerut. Suddenly, from January, 1857, the news 
spread like wildfire that the cartridges had been 
greased with the fat of pigs and cows — the first an 
animal abhorred by all Muhammadans and even 
English people residing in the East, the last an 
animal held sacred by all Hindus, the slaying of 
which is even to-day prohibited in many purely 
native states and resented so much by the Sikhs 
from sentiment, and not from religious feeling, that 
it was accounted one of the primary causes of 



DISCONTENT. 2JJ 

the second Sikh war. It was impossible to retrieve 
the blunder, it was impossible to explain it away or 
reassure the natives that no such cartridges would in 
the future be issued, that the sepoys might manu- 
facture their own cartridges or have full proof that no 
polluting material would be used. 

Panic spread, carefully fomented by the cunning 
skill of the discontented. 

At Barrackpur fires broke out in the cantonments 
and civil lines ; at Berhampur, 120 miles to the north 
of Calcutta, the 19th Native Infantry flatly refused 
to receive even the percussion caps served out to 
them on parade, and the anger of their commanding 
officer, Colonel Mitchell only increased their sus- 
picions. 

At Barrackpur Colonel Hearsey endeavoured to 
allay the excitement of his troops, the 34th Native 
Infantry. He assured them that they might grease 
their own cartridges, that it was childish to suppose 
the Government had any desire to interfere with 
their caste or religion : his words fell on unbelieving 
ears. 

In Calcutta the news was received with consterna- 
tion ; plots had been discovered whereby the fort was 
to be seized by the natives and all the English mur- 
dered during a garden-fete to be given by Maharaja 
Sindhia at the Botanical Gardens across the Hugh' — 
a plot supposed to have been frustrated by the rain 
falling and the proposed fete-day being abandoned. 

From Calcutta to Dinapur, some 300 miles away; 
there was but a single English regiment on which the 
safety of Bengal depended. The 84th was hastily 



278 THE MUTINY. 

summoned From Rangoon while the 19th Native 
Infantry, having on its muster 400 high caste 
Brahmans, was, on March 31st, paid off and dis- 
banded, the sepoys, as they marched away vowing 
vengeance on the 34th Native Infantry, who had 
told them the story of the polluted cartridges. 

Two days before a young sepoy of the 34th Native 
Infantry, Manghal Pandi, marched out in front of the 
Quarter Guard and fired at his adjutant, whom he cut 
down with his sword. As the two struggled on the 
ground, only one single Muhammadan out of all the 
assembled sepoys came to the assistance of the 
English officer. If the promptitude and presence of 
mind displayed on the occasion by the commanding 
officer, Colonel Hearsey, had been afterwards shown 
at Meerut, the Mutiny would have been quickly 
checked. Having heard the news he hastily rode 
down with his two sons to the parade-ground. As he 
approached, cries of warning came that the sepoy was 
taking aim: "Damn his musket !" cried the colonel, 
who turned and charged his son, in case he fell, to 
ride the mutineer down. Manghal Pandi waited not ; 
grounding his gun he placed his foot on the trigger 
and fell wounded to the ground. On the 8th of April 
he was hanged in front of the regiment, which was 
disbanded towards the end of the month. By many 
it was considered that a fatal leniency had been shown, 
especially in the case of some of the sepoys who had 
struck their adjutant when he was attacked by Manghal 
Pandi. 

Meanwhile the panic spread to Ambala, one 
"thousand miles from Calcutta. There the sepoys 




HENRY LAWRENCE. 

(From "A Year on the Punjab Frontier,'" by Major Herbert Edwardes.) 



280 THE MUTINY. 

refused to receive the cartridges, and Lord Canning 
refused to give way, for now there were no grounds 
for suspecting that they had not been properly 
manufactured. 

From Cawnpur worse news came, for there the 
sepoys would not accept the Government flour, which 
they alleged had been mingled with the dust of cow 
bones so that the caste of the Hindus might be 
destroyed. 

From Oudh came similar news. Sir Henry 
Lawrence had to disarm the 7th Oudh Irregular 
Infantry who likewise refused to receive the cart- 
ridges. From Meerut came the worse tidings of all 
— eighty-five troopers of the 3rd Native Cavalry had 
declined even to touch the cartridges. They were 
tried by court-martial, and in May awarded from 
six to ten years' imprisonment each. 

On the morning of the 9th of May the eighty-five 
men were marched down to the parade-ground, and 
in front of a regiment of English dragoons, the 60th 
Rifles, a strong force of horse and foot artillery, 
and the nth and 20th Regiments of the Native 
Infantry, they were stripped of their uniform, heavily 
ironed, and marched to the gaol, where they were 
placed under a guard of sepoys. 

On the morning of the next day, Sunday, General 
Hewitt telegraphed to headquarters that the sentence 
had been carried out, and that the behaviour of the rest 
of the native troops was excellent, while private letters 
received from the officers of the native regiments told 
that the sepoys were never behaving better. The day 
passed as usual in the English cantonment, the 



MUTINY AT MEERUT. 28 1 

English officers and European soldiers waited for the 
long, hot day to cease when in the quickly fading 
twilight the tolling of the bell would rouse them for 
the church parade. In the distant sepoy lines wild 
commotion raged ; there all spoke of the foul injustice 
meted out to the eighty-five troopers who had pre- 
ferred to leave a regiment, so long their home, rather 
than lose their honour here and hopes of an eternal 
hereafter. They spoke of the coming downfall of the 
English rule ; of the Emperor at Delhi who was ready 
to proclaim himself once more and gather round his 
banner all who would fight against the revilers of the 
true Muhammadan faith and defilers of the caste-laws 
of the Hindus. The native servants collected in groups 
behind their masters' bungalows, and spoke in whispers 
of the coming night, a few stole forward at the last 
moment to beg those they had long served not to go 
that evening to the church. Some of the English 
officers having heard of the excitement hastened to 
the lines where the sepoys were quartered. Colonel 
Finnis, commandant of the nth Native Infantry rode 
up to address the sepoys ; he was riddled with bullets, 
his death being followed by that of Captain Mac- 
donald of the 20th. 

The 3rd Native Cavalry had, in the meantime, 
gone to the gaol and brought back in triumph their 
eighty-five imprisoned companions to join with the 
sepoys of the 1 1 th and 20th, who had now broken 
into open mutiny. 

The bazaars soon thronged with crowds armed with 
sticks, staves, spears, and swords eager for the coming 
carnival of riot, plunder, and unrestrained licence. 



282 THE MUTINY. 

The Europeans in the cantonments on their way to 
church saw in the distance the flames shoot out from 
the west, where the bungalows were burning, while 
nearer and nearer sounded the musket-shots and cries 
of the mob as it issued forth from the city to shoot them 
down as they hurried home in their carriages and en- 
deavoured to escape through the swiftness of their 
horses. Though there were enough English troops, 
artillery, rifles, and carabineers to scatter the muti- 
neers and all the badmashes of the city from out 
of Meerut, there was no head to guide them, no 
Gillespie as at Vellore, no Hearsey as at Barrackpur, 
to lead them forth and save India from the horrors 
that ensued. Useless it is now to recall the mournful 
tale of divided counsel, repudiated responsibility, and 
senile incapacity which held the English troops in 
check that night of the 18th of May, while English 
women were crying for help or waiting for death to 
relieve them from an even more dreadful fate, while 
innocent children were being hewn in pieces, while 
houses were being burned and plundered by escaped 
malefactors, and the raging mob of vile wretches 
which an Eastern city ever holds in its midst was 
roused to lawless passion by scenes of bloodshed and 
destruction. 

All night long the fires raged in Meerut ; the Euro- 
pean civil inhabitants sought shelter with their wives 
and children in the gardens surrounding the smoulder- 
ing embers of their late homes ; women left without 
their husbands were brutally murdered, a few being- 
guarded safely to places of refuge by faithful troopers 
and servants. 



THE REBELS AT DELHI. 283 

In the morning the marauding bands crept back to 
the city and neighbouring villages, and the garrison 
was left to gather together the mutilated corpses of 
the slain in the theatre of the station. 

The sepoys, terrified by their deeds, escaped to 
their homes ; the cavalry rode on to Delhi, there to 
proclaim the effete King once more Emperor of India. 

The overwhelming force at Meerut took no ven- 
geance on the guilty city, nor were the mutineers 
followed to Delhi, which was left to its fate. 

Early in the morning of the nth of May the 
escaped cavalry bivouacked in the Diwan-i-Am, or 
Public Hallof Audience, at Delhi, where they clamoured 
for the aged Emperor Bahadur Shah to claim his 
Empire and receive their homage, for the English 
garrison at Meerut had been defeated. 

Captain Douglas, the commandant of the palace 
guards, Mr. Jennings, the chaplain, his daughter and 
a lady staying with them, were soon slain ; Mr. Fraser, 
the commissioner, was cut down in the palace at the 
foot of the stairs, his head paraded through the streets 
and carried to the Mughal Emperor, that he might 
know of the fall of the English rule. 

Swift flashed the news to Ambala, the signaller 
having to fly before the mutineers the moment he 
sent the message. 

The English bungalows were burned, the Delhi 
College sacked, Mr. Taylor, the principal, and his 
assistants killed, and men, women, and children were 
hunted out and murdered. Mr. Beresford, of the 
Delhi Bank, with his wife and two daughters bravely 
defended themselves with spears on the roof of their 



284 THE MUTINY. 

home until at length they were slain, thus escaping 
the insults, torments and cruel death which awaited 
those who were captured and murdered afterwards 
on the 13th and 16th of May, when nigh on fifty 
captives were ruthlessly butchered in the palace. 

Colonel Ripley marched his sepoys, those of the 
54th Native Infantry, from their cantonments on the 
ridge outside Delhi against the mutineers in the 
city ; but as he gave the order to charge he was cut 
down, and received fifteen wounds ; of his officers, 
Captains Smith and Burrows, Lieutenants Edwards 
and Waterfield, and Dr. Dopping were killed, and 
Captain Gordon, of the 74th, fell shot through the 
heart. 

The 38th Native Regiment, now also openly 
mutinous, deserted to join the rebel camp in the 
city. On the ridge the English officers, the rescued 
women and children, were grouped together in the 
flagstaff tower, doubting if it were better to fly or 
wait for aid from Meerut or Agra. Suddenly from 
the city a vast column of black smoke rushed upward, 
and the flames leaped high, throwing a lurid light far 
and wide, followed by a mighty roar, the signal to 
the survivors that for them no longer remained any 
hope. Lieutenant Willoughby and his garrison of 
eight heroes, sooner than yield their charge, had 
blown up the powder magazine, and scattered death 
and destruction amid the mass of natives who swarmed 
on and around its wall. Of those who escaped from 
the city by being lowered from its ramparts, and of 
those who hurried from the flagstaff tower, many fled to 
the open country, to be there slain by the villagers ; 



DELAY. 285 

others, men bleeding from many wounds, women 
carrying infants but a few months old, slowly stole on 
during the night-time or else wearily wandered on in 
the daytime, bareheaded and barefooted, faint beneath 
a burning sun, sometimes beaten, sometimes insulted, 
occasionally meeting with kindness, and snatching a 
hasty meal stealthily brought to them by those natives 
who deplored their forlorn condition but feared to 
aid them openly. At length, after many days and 
nights of pain, they were released from their suffering 
by death or else happily found refuge among friends 
at Agra, Karnal, or Ambala. Delhi was left in the 
hands of the rebels, where the aged Emperor again 
sat on the throne of his forefathers, whence he issued 
his feeble orders to the troops who, under the nominal 
command of Mirza Mughal, the Emperor's son, 
defied all authority, pillaged, robbed and plundered 
the merchants, bringing back to the people memories 
of the old days when Nadir Shah devastated their 
land. 

When the news reached Ambala the Commander- 
in-Chief, General Anson, had to wait nearly a month 
before he could assemble together 3,800 troops, it 
being found even then absolutely impossible to collect 
the necessary transport. 

Ere the avenging army reached Karnal on the 27th 
of May, General Anson was seized with cholera and 
died. It was not until the 8th of June that the small 
army, now under General Barnard, reached Badliki- 
Sarai, six miles from Delhi, where they found the 
mutineers strongly entrenched, and determined to 
dispute the passage by the Trunk Road, 



286 THE MUTINY. 

The Europeans, 3,000 in number, supported by one 
battalion of Gurkhas and twenty-four guns, drove the 
enemy back into Delhi, and captured twenty-six of their 
guns. Unable to enter the city, the British troops 
took up their position along the historic ridge running 
two miles to the north and west of the fort, within 
range of the heavy guns, howitzers and mortars of 
the mutineers. To assault the fort was found im- 
possible. Eight thousand sepoys, well drilled, well 
provisioned, with more than enough guns, stood 
entrenched behind the massive masonry walls, 12 feet 
thick, seven miles in extent, strengthened by nume- 
rous bastions, each holding ten to fourteen heavy 
pieces of artillery, surrounded by a wide, dry ditch 24 
feet deep. To the mutineers new allies flocked daily, 
until by the end of June the force at Delhi reached a 
total of 30,000, watched by a British army of 6,500 
men. 

The Europeans could do little but entrench them- 
selves, hold the ridge, and wait anxiously for reinforce- 
ments from Calcutta, nine hundred miles away, or 
from the Punjab, where John Lawrence had 10,000 
Europeans in twelve regiments, 36,000 Bengal sepoys, 
and 20,000 irregular Punjab troops and police. 

Small hope of help from the Bengal sepoys, for of 
seventy-four infantry regiments but six remained true. 
In the Punjab John Lawrence could do little more 
than maintain his position, secure the arsenal at 
Firozpur with its siege train and stores of ammunition, 
disarm his native troops, or if they mutinied attack 
and disperse them. 

In Oudh Sir Henry Lawrence was left to face some 



UNPOPULARITY OF CANNING. 2% J 

twenty battalions of native troops with one British 
regiment, while at Allahabad, the key to the disturbed 
districts, the sepoy regiments mutinied on the 8th of 
June. 

In the whole of India there were but 39,000 British 
troops to face 225,000 more or less disaffected sepoys. 
From England upwards of 30,000 soldiers were sent ; 
from Bombay, Ceylon, and Madras troops were 
summoned, while Lord Elgin hastened to land the 
force destined for the China war. Amid the clamour 
of impetuous counsel, and hasty cries for indiscriminate 
vengeance against the whole native race, Lord Canning 
stood calm and resolute. Well was it for England 
that in the solemn hour when her foster-children went 
forth and proclaimed that they were not of her kith 
and kin, she found one man strong enough to stand 
forth and proclaim, " I will not govern in anger. . ., . 
I will never allow an angry arid undiscriminating act 
or word to proceed from the Government of India as 
long as I am responsible for it." 

What need to dim the glory of the picture by 
stories of futile squabblings of piqued volunteers and 
angered pressmen, when Lord Canning faced India- 
mutinous from Nagpur to Bombay, from Simla to 
Haidarabad ; when John Lawrence, Edwardes, and 
Nicholson held the Punjab safe in the hollow of their 
hand ; when Henry Lawrence did his duty at Luck- 
now, when the names of Havelock and Outram will 
ever be associated, by all those who boast of British 
blood, with the memories of undying deeds ; when 
John Colvin uncomplainingly laid down his head 
on the table in the fort of Agra to die, wearied 



288 THE MUTINY. 

with many troubles and lapsed hopes ; when Colin 
Campbell, cautious and careful, slowly and surely 
rolled the mutineers before him ; when Sir Hugh 
Rose, Baron Strathnairn, of Strathnairn and Jhansi, 
rode through Central India with lightning speed, 
breaking down almost impenetrable fortresses just 
" as a pack of cards falls at the touch of a hand " ! 

Of ultimate success Canning never doubted, though 
day by day came news of fresh and overwhelming 
disasters. 

Calcutta had at the outbreak of the Mutiny 
but one English regiment, there being none other 
nearer than Dinapur, where three sepoy regiments 
mutinied on the 25th of July. At Arrah, twenty- 
five miles to the west of Dinapur, the Europeans, 
nine in number, with six Eurasians, sent off their 
women and children, and took refuge in a small 
double-storied billiard-house, the front verandah of 
which had been bricked up without mortar or 
cement by Vicars Boyle, a railway engineer. Fifty 
Sikhs were sent to their assistance, the command 
being taken by Herwald Wake the magistrate. On 
the morning of the 27th of July the siege commenced. 
The mutineers of the 7th, 8th, and 46th Native 
Infantry, aided by levies under Kunwar Singh, a 
local landowner, surrounded the billiard-room and 
commenced the assault. 

The next day two small cannons were brought to 
play on the weak walls, mines were sunk, fires lighted 
and bags of chillies thrown on them in the hope that 
the wind would carry the suffocating smoke to the 
garrison and force them out ; still the little band held 



THE DEFENCE OF ARRAH. 289 

out, making sorties every now and again to drive 
back their assailants or destroy the mines, while those 
inside the fort remained busy digging a well for water 
or casting bullets. 

On the night of the 29th, 415 British soldiers 
and Sikhs, under Captain Dunbar, hurried to the 
rescue from Dinapur. They fell into an ambuscade, 
were driven back with fearful slaughter, and only fifty 
men and three officers escaped to sail down the river 
and carry the news of the disaster to the weeping 
women and despairing garrison at Dinapur. 

Wake and Boyle held out in their bungalow against 
3,000 native mutineers until the 2nd of August, when 
Major Vincent Eyre of the Bengal Artillery, on his 
way from Calcutta to Allahabad, turned aside with 
three guns, 154 men of the 5th Fusiliers, 18 volun- 
teers and others — in all 320 men — drove the 3,000 
mutineers from before Arrah at the point of the 
bayonet, and relieved the heroic garrison. 

At Benares, the Holy City of Pilgrimage for all 
Hindus, whose very ground is counted so sacred that 
even an outcast foreigner dying within ten miles of 
its centre is deemed worthy of a future home in the 
abode of the gods, the garrison of three sepoy regi- 
ments, in the absence of any European soldiers, 
mutinied ; disorder and wild excitement spread 
among the fanatic inhabitants of the city until, on 
the 3rd of June, Colonel Neill, hurried up from 
Madras with his "Lambs," the 1st Madras Fusiliers, 
swept out the rebels and kept the city quiet, meting 
out to the guilty a stern and unrelenting vengeance. 

Further on at Allahabad, at the junction of the 

20 



2gO THE MUTINY. 

Ganges and Jumna, 809 miles from Calcutta by river, 
and 503 miles by road, where there were again no 
European soldiers, the sepoys had broken out and 
murdered fourteen of their officers. Lieutenant 
Brasyer, with 65 European invalid artillery, a small 
body of Sikhs and 100 European volunteers stubbornly 
held the fort until Neill and 40 of his " Lambs " came 
up from Benares, seven of whom fell dead on the road 
as they staggered on beneath the blazing rays of a 
June sun. Allahabad was saved, the mutineers 
punished with terrible severity, peace restored, and 
Neill left free to gather in supplies and turn his 
attention to his beloved fusiliers who were dying of 
sunstroke, cholera, and drink. 

To advance further was impossible ; reinforcements 
were needed, bullocks and native followers could not 
be obtained. At Cawnpur, 125 miles higher up the 
river on the south of the Ganges, forty-two miles south- 
west of Lucknow, Major-General Sir Hugh Wheeler, 
seventy-five years of age, fifty of which had been 
spent in service in India, was in charge with three 
sepoy regiments and but sixty European artillerymen. 

Nana Sahib, the adopted son of the last Peshwa of 
the Marathas, resided a few miles away on his estate 
at Bithur, his heart full of hatred against the English, 
who had refused to continue to him the pension held 
to have lapsed on the death of his adoptive father. 

To the English officers at Cawnpur Nana Sahib 
was well known — they had visited him, dined, hunted, 
driven, and played billiards with him ; all were assured 
of his friendly loyalty. 

When at length the bitter truth dawned on Sir 



THE GARRISON AT CAWNPUR. 20/1 

Hugh Wheeler that his sepoys were not to be trusted, 
he prepared for defence. A mud wall four feet high 
was hastily thrown up round two thatched bungalows 
used as hospitals, where the garrisoi determined to 
entrench themselves. The cantonments and magazine 
were left unprotected, and messages for aid sent to Sir 
Henry Lawrence at Lucknow and to Nana Sahib at 
Bithur. Provisions were hastily collected, gaps were 
made in the mud wall to receive ten guns, and by the 
5th of June the doomed garrison of 465 men, includ- 
ing 70 invalids, with 200 women and 200 children, 
found themselves surrounded by 3,000 mutineers 
commanded by Nana Sahib's Commander-in-Chief 
Tantia Topi. For twenty-one days the garrison 
fought for life ; within the first week all the artillery- 
men were dead or disabled. The thatched hospitals, 
where the wounded lay, were fired by red-hot 
cannon balls ; beneath the shattered walls crouched 
the women and children ; along the broken-down 
entrenchment the men fought on, while from the 
rebel camp the iron hail of shot and shell ceased not. 
When the mutineers found courage to charge over 
the mud embankment they were again and again 
driven back by the heroic band now weakened by 
exposure, hunger, and thirst. Round the only well 
the bullets flew, and many a brave soul fell when 
taking his turn in drawing water. 

From Havelock at Lucknow came no help, Neill 
was powerless at Allahabad. The men at Cawnpur 
could have fought their way through the surrounding 
sepoys, but then they would have had to leave the 
women and children behind. On the 27th of June 



292 THE MUTINY. 

the despairing garrison entered into a treaty with 
Nana Sahib, who agreed to let them march out with 
their arms and sixty rounds of ammunition to each 
man, and promised them safe conduct down the river 
to Allahabad. In the early morning of the 27th of 
June the wounded men and wearied women were 
carried to the boats drawn up at the Sati Chaura ghat 
on the banks of the Ganges, one mile to the north- 
west of the entrenchments, where the craven coward 
Tantia Topi had concealed sepoys and guns along the 
river-banks, with orders to open fire on the men, 
women, and children they could not conquer and 
feared to face. 

When the unsuspecting victims were huddled to- 
gether in the leaf-thatched native boats, deeming 
they had at length escaped from the horrors that had 
for so long crowded round them, a bugle sound from 
the banks gave the signal for attack. 

The straw-thatched roofs of the boats, amid which 
burning embers had been cunningly concealed, were 
soon in flames ; the native oarsmen fled, and all 
efforts to shove the heavy budgerows from the bank 
were found unavailing. The guns poured forth a 
withering storm of grape, many were shot, many 
perished amid the flames, many were cut to pieces 
by the riverside. Those who survived were brought 
back to Nana Sahib at Cawnpur, two officers, 
Mowbray-Thomson and Delafosse, with two privates, 
Murphy and Sullivan, alone escaped, after many 
weird adventures by swimming six miles down the 
river to Oudh. Of the survivors brought to Nana 
Sahib the men were instantly shot, and, on the 







THE MEMORIAL WELL AT CAWNPUR. 



294 THE MUTINY. 

approach of Havelock, the women were massacred 
— a slaughter afterwards terribly avenged by the 
ungovernable wrath of Neill. 

Far away, amid the burning plains of India, the 
sad Memorial over the Cawnpur well marks the 
spot where the dead and dying were hastily buried 
together. 

From a similar fate the garrison at Lucknow, 
forty-two miles away across the river Ganges, were 
saved by the forethought of Henry Lawrence. Driven 
back by the mutinous sepoys from Chinhat, where 
he had advanced to meet them, Lawrence retreated 
to the defences he had raised round the Residency. 
By the 1st of July upwards of 60,000 rebels surged 
round his entrenchments, defended by a scattered 
force of 927 Europeans and 665 faithful sepoys. 

All that was possible to be done in the way of 
storing provisions and ammunition was done by 
Lawrence, but ere the siege had well commenced, 
a shell passed through the room where he lay, and 
wounded him mortally. Within two days he died, 
his sole wish being that no epitaph should be written 
above his grave save that which told that Henry 
Lawrence had " tried to do his duty." 

The garrison under Colonel Inglis, of the 32nd 
Regiment, held on bravely against the mutinous 
sepoys and the few rebellious Talukdars who had 
brought their followers to join in the struggle. 

From Calcutta Canning hurried up troops to the 
relief of Lucknow, the command being entrusted to 
the soldier-saint, Henry Havelock. Of a race not yet 
extinct, Havelock knew no fear of man, yet in his 



U HAVELOCK' S SAINTS." 295 

dying words to Outram, the Bayard of India, can 
still be heard the weird, solemn echo from the limits 
of man's tether : " I have for forty years so ruled my 
life that when death comes I might face it without 
fear." Stern, serious, and reserved, he had early in 
life joined the Baptists, his wife being daughter of the 
famous Serampur missionary, the Rev. Dr. Marshman. 
His soldiers whom he not only sternly disciplined 
but earnestly prayed with, were well known in those 
days as " Havelock's Saints," and, though sneered at 
for their piety, were wondered at for their unswerving 
steadiness and cool courage. Sir H. Harding, who 
had watched the deep earnestness and unfaltering 
course of Havelock's life, took full measure of the 
hero when he declared that, " if ever India should 
be in danger, the Government have only to put 
Havelock at the head of an army and it will be 
saved." 

Many a fight had Havelock fought ; at Khurd 
Kabul, Jalalabad, Maharajpur, Mudki, Firozshah, 
and Sobraon, to find himself a Colonel in 1854, after 
forty-two years' service, and a Major-General in 1857 
at the age of sixty-two, with the one ambition that 
had ever fired his soul — the ambition of command- 
ing an army in the field — unattained. There was 
no campaign in the world's history the full details of 
which he had not mastered, and the leading move- 
ments of which he had not panted to put in 
practice. 

Hurrying from the war in China he landed at 
Calcutta on the 17th of June, and was introduced to 
the Governor-General by Sir Patrick Grant the new 



296 THE MUTINY. 

Commander-in-Chief who had travelled with him 
from Madras, as the man who was to save the 
garrison at Cawnpur, and Sir Henry Lawrence at 
Lucknow. By the time Havelock reached Allahabad 
on the 30th of June, the garrison at Cawnpur had 
fallen ; but, not knowing the sad news, the relieving 
force, on the 7th of July, commenced their memor- 
able march for the relief of Cawnpur and Lucknow. 
Havelock was at the head of some 1,500 Europeans 
and a little band of volunteer cavalry under Captain 
Barrow, Major Renaud having started beforehand, 
on the 30th of June, with two guns, 400 men of the 
Madras Fusiliers and 84th Regiment, with 300 Sikhs. 
As the small army strode on to meet death from the 
foe, from sunstroke, cholera, and disease — for but 250 
of them crossed the Ganges for Lucknow — the news 
was sent back from Renaud's advance column that 
Cawnpur had fallen. 

There were men in the relieving force who knew 
what it was to fight — men of Neill's God-forgotten 
" Lambs " ; men of the 78th, the Ross-shire Buffs, 
who would listen in stern silence to the long-spun 
heroic appeals of Havelock, but who swore in wild 
rage to take a terrible revenge on the murderers of 
the women and children at Cawnpur ; men of the 84th 
who had served with Wellington, and 100 of whose 
number were at Cawnpur and Lucknow ; men of the 
64th whom Havelock had commanded in Persia ; 
Brasyer's Sikhs and Maude's artillery who, when the 
staggering bullocks broke down, dragged their guns 
themselves to the front. There was the plucky band 
of twenty badly-mounted volunteers under Captain 



ne/ll's "lambs." 297 

Barrow, who waited not for the order to charge, but 
rode straight through the sepoys amid the cheers of 
Havelock and his regulars. Cholera moved among 
them, the sun pitilessly slew them ; still they fought 
on. On the 13th of July, at Fatehpur, they won for 
Havelock his first battle, scattered the sepoys in four 
hours' fight, and captured eleven guns ; on the 15th 
they rushed the sepoy entrenchments, but Renaud fell, 
to fight no more ; the same afternoon they crossed 
the bridge over the Pandu Nadi, and charged into the 
midst of the rebel gunners, for nothing could stay 
them. Though the garrison at C awn pur was now 
known to have been massacred, the news had come 
that the women and children were alive, and,- with 
Havelock, the soldiers cried, " With God's help we 
shall save them, or every man of us die in the 
attempt." 

Beyond Maharajpur Nana Sahib came out with 
eight guns and 5,000 of his % troops, and- arranged his 
sepoys in a crescent one mile and a quarter across 
the road to Cawnpur, where he bid defiance to 
Barrow's 20 gentlemen volunteers, 1,100 infantry, 
and 300 Sikhs. While the Fusiliers and Barrow's 
handful of cavalry drew the fire of the enemy's 
centre, the left was rolled in by the Ross-shire Buffs, 
who charged down in slow, swinging run on the 
guns, and hurled the rebel sepoys before them, 
pausing only for a moment to cheer the gentlemen 
volunteers as they dashed down the Trunk Road 
into the midst of the enemy's sowars. 

The weary, sunstricken soldiers had to press on, 
for in the distance the mutineers had rallied, and 



298 THE MUTINY-. 

Nana Sahib rode in front of them on an elephant. 
The daring band of Englishmen, hardly able to 
carry the weight of their muskets, had to pause 
and crouch on the ground while over their heads 
the cannon balls came hissing. The captured guns 
had been left behind, and Maude's battery could 
no longer advance. " Rise up," cried Havelock, " the 
longer you look at it, the less you will like it ! " 
The 64th rushed forward, led by Major Stirling and 
headed by Lieutenant Havelock, the General's son 
and aide-de-camp, for which he got the Victoria 
Cross ; in the rear the ground was strewn with 
wounded, and the enemy broke in total rout 
Nana Sahib galloped off in haste, for he knew the 
hated Feringhi soldiers who had so wildly fought 
their way from Allahabad were hurrying to view, 
with maledictions against his name, the well at 
Cawnpur, where the women and children lay asleep. 
Cawnpur was gained ; the British soldiers wandered 
over the entrenchments, wondering how the gar- 
rison had held out, and how frail women had so 
heroically borne their part in the unequal conflict. 

In the well of Cawnpur lay the uncovered remains 
of 118 women and 92 children, brutally murdered. 

The wrath of General Neill was terrible and not to 
be stayed, for, as he wrote, " My object was to inflict 
a fearful punishment for a revolting, cowardly, and 
barbarous deed, and to strike terror into the rebels. 
No one who has witnessed the scenes of murder, 
mutilation, and massacre can ever listen to the word 
'mercy' as applied to these fiends." 

Still the task was not finished; news came from 



ADVANCE TO LUCK NOW. 2CO, 

Lucknow that Sir Henry Lawrence was dead, and 
that in overwhelming numbers the rebels swarmed 
around the Residency. 

The Ganges rolled between and had to be bridged ; 
beyond, the rice-fields were flooded, the rain fell in 
torrents. Yet Havelock and his force, now 1,500 
strong, of whom 1,200 were Europeans, twelve 
small guns, and two troops of mounted infantry, 
set forth on the 20th of July for the relief of 
Lucknow — a seemingly hopeless task. By the time 
that the advanced Oudh sepoys were driven back 
from Unao, nine miles out, and again from Bashi- 
ratganj, six miles further on, the gallant band 
had lost one-sixth of its European force, the enemy 
was still in front, Lucknow was surrounded with 
rebels, and cholera and dysentery were mowing down 
Havelock's troops. If any further advance took 
place it was certain that not a man would have 
lived to reach the Bailey Guard Gate at Lucknow. 
So the gallant band had to sullenly and sadly 
move back to Cawnpur. On the 4th of August 
the attempt was again essayed, but to fail ; again 
on the nth of August a final struggle was made, 
the enemy beaten back a third time from Bashi- 
ratganj, and Havelock had to recognise the im- 
practicability of the task he had undertaken. 

One more fight had to be fought by the wearied 
troops, who, on the 16th of August, advanced to 
Bithur, where they gained a brilliant victory over 
4,000 rallied sepoys of Nana Sahib. In the midst of 
all Havelock's struggles the bitter news came that his 
command had passed to Major-General Sir James 



300 THE MUTINY. 

Outram, to whom the duty of relieving Lucknow 
was now entrusted by right of seniority. 

Outram, the Bayard of India, was not the man to 
fear to act as his chivalrous nature prompted him. 
On reaching Cawnpur on the 13th of September, he 
penned his famous order in which he waived his 
right to relieve the beleaguered garrison : " The 
Major-General, therefore, in gratitude for, and ad- 
miration of the brilliant deed of arms achieved by 
Brigadier-General Havelock and his gallant troops, 
will cheerfully waive his rank in favour of that 
Officer on this occasion, and will accompany the force 
to Lucknow in his Civil capacity as Chief Com- 
missioner of Oudh, tendering his Military Services to 
Brigadier-General Havelock as a volunteer. On the 
relief of Lucknow the Major-General will resume his 
position at the Head of the Forces." 

By the 19th of September Havelock rode out at 
the head of a well-equipped force of 2,388 Euro- 
pean infantry, over 100 volunteer horsemen under 
Barrow, 282 artillery under Maude, Olpherts, and 
Eyre, with Major Cooper of the Bengal Artillery in 
command, 341 Sikh infantry, and 59 native cavalry. 
Outram showed his profound contempt for the 
mutineers by never drawing his sword during the 
campaign, trusting only to his gold-headed malacca 
cane, with which he dealt sounding blows on the 
backs of the flying sepoys. 

Before the first day's march had ended the rebels 
were driven right through Mangalwar, past Bashirat- 
ganj, and by the end of the second day the booming 
of cannon from Lucknow could be heard. 



"hold on to peshawar" 301 

By the 23rd the gardens of the large square en- 
closure, known as the Alambagh, were in sight. In 
front stretched ' the long line of mutineers. While 
Olpherts and Eyre drove in the enemy's centre and 
left, the infantry captured the Alambagh, and chased 
the sepoys across the Charbagh Bridge spanning the 
canal, two miles beyond which lay Lucknow. When 
the long day's work was at last over the glad news 
reached the wearied soldiers that Delhi had fallen. 

From the 13th of May, when Captain Henry Daly 
rode in from Mardan, having covered 580 miles in 
twenty-two marches, at the head of 800 Guerilla 
guides, troops had poured towards the ridge at Delhi, 
until by August there were there assembled 8,748 
men, of whom 3,317 were Europeans. 

From Peshawar John Lawrence had sent 300 
veteran Sikh artillerymen, 1,200 hastily raised Sikh 
sappers and miners, he even hesitated if he should 
not hand Peshawar over to the Afghan monarch, 
Dost Muhammad, and send all his regular troops 
to Delhi, depending on 7,000 faithful levies of the 
Rajas of Jind and Nabha and the Maharaja of 
Patiala, aided by 1,000 Sikhs, to hold the Punjab. 
" Tell them," wrote Edwardes in hasty expostulation, 
" they can have no more men from the Punjab." 
" Give up everything," wrote Nicholson, " but Pesha- 
war, Lahore, and Multan." " Hold on to Peshawar 
to the last," Canning answered from Calcutta 

Lawrence held on to the Punjab, but he deter- 
mined to play his last stake. Leaving himself but 
4,000 European troops, he sent his " Movable 
Column " to the front, and on the 14th of August 



302 THE. MUTINY. 

Nicholson, unconquered swordsman, terrible in his 
wrath, unrelenting in his vengeance, held in venera- 
tion by his troopers, and worshipped as the very 
incarnation of the God of War by the wild Sikh 
soldiery, rode towards the ridge at the head of 2,500 
men, all ready to follow their leader up to the very 
gates of Delhi. 

On the 4th of September siege guns, waggons, and 
ammunition enough to grind "Delhi to powder," were 
carried down by sixteen elephants from Firozpur. 

On September 6th 3,300 effective British troops, 
5,400 sepoys, and 2,500 soldiers sent by loyal allies, 
waited before Delhi, there being in hospital over 3,000 
sick and wounded. By the 13th the city walls were 
breached, and before daybreak of the 14th of Sep- 
tember four columns marched to the assault. 

From the third column a brave band of heroes crept 
forth to hang the powder-bags on the spikes of the 
Kashmir Gate to blow it to pieces. Sergeant Car- 
michael laid the train and fell dead ; Lieutenant 
Salkeld, R.E., seized the match, and then fell, shot 
through the arm and leg ; Corporal Burgess fell mor- 
tally wounded as he fired the train ; Lieutenant Home, 
R.E., and Bugler Hawthorne then sounded three 
times the advance, and over the rebels who had been 
killed by the explosion the column charged through 
the gateway and entered the city. The second 
column entered by the water bastion, while the first 
column, led by Nicholson, swarmed up the breach 
near the main guard. As Nicholson's tall form 
strode down the narrow streets waving his sword to 
encourage his men forward against a gun that swept 



FALL OF DELHI. 303 

the road, the hero fell, wounded to death. With 
Nicholson 60 officers and 1,085 men were slain in the 
capture of the city, the siege itself, which lasted from 
the 30th of May to the 20th of September, having 
cost the lives of 2,151 Europeans and 1,686 natives, 
who fell fighting on our side. 

Bahadur Shah, the last Emperor of the Mughals, 
fled for refuge to the tomb of his ancestor, Humayun, 
some six miles from Delhi. Thither rode Hodson, of 
Hodson's Horse, born leader of wayward spirits, un- 
hesitating in his lofty disdain and cold contempt of 
official routine and halting prudence. He seized the 
Emperor from amid his wavering attendants, brought 
him back to Delhi, and delivered him up to justice. 
Again he rode out to the tomb and captured the 
three princes, but as he led them towards Delhi he 
shot them dead on the public road, alleging that 
he feared the crowd might attempt a rescue. 

The Emperor was tried for rebellion, treason, and 
murder, and deported a State prisoner to Rangoon, 
where he died on the 7th of November, 1862, being 
buried in the night-time near his bungalow, so that 
none might know the resting-place of the last of the 
great Mughal Emperors. 

Outram and Havelock were, on the 23rd of Sep- 
tember, before the Alambagh, when the news reached 
them of the fall of Delhi. There the reserve am- 
munition, stores and baggage, wounded and sick of 
the relieving force were left behind, under a guard 
of European troops, the main body pressing on for 
their fatal march, on the 25th of September, for the 
Relief of Lucknow. 



304 THE MUTINY. 

In an attack on the Yellow House by the Char- 
bagh Bridge, Outram was shot through the arm, and 
Maude lost his best artillerymen. Here the first 
serious check came, for the bridge was swept by six 
guns strongly posted and entrenched. From the 
neighbouring houses by the canal-sides the mutineers 
kept up a heavy fire of musketry. Maude's two guns, 
now worked by volunteer artillerymen, opened fire 
across the bridge at 150 yards' range, and here 
some of his gunners were blown to pieces, the fire 
from their own guns having exploded their powder 
pouches. At all costs the bridge had to be carried. 
The Madras Fusiliers and 84th were eager to charge. 
Young Havelock, Arnold, and Lieutenant-Colonel 
Fraser Tytler advanced amid a storm of grape 
from the heavy guns ; Arnold fell shot through both 
thighs, Tytler and his horse were seen struggling 
on the ground, and Havelock alone was left to 
cheer on the Fusiliers as they sprang forward to 
clear the way. The bridge taken, the 78th High- 
landers held it while the army of relief crossed 
by the right bank of the canal, and made their way 
towards the Secundra Bagh under a heavy fire 
from the Muti Masjid and the Mess House, until 
they found themselves face to face with a battery 
posted in front of the Kaisarbagh or King's Palace. 
As the main body hesitated, the 78th, who had left 
the bridge and marched by a short route to the 
left through the crowded streets, suddenly dashed 
forward on the flank of the battery, spiked the guns 
and cut down the rebel gunners. In front of the 
now combined force lay the narrow streets leading 



RELIEF OF LUC KNOW. 305 

to the Bailey Guard of the Residency. On each 
side the high houses were full of sepoys to the house- 
tops, the cross-alleys were crowded with desperate 
men. 

Outram vehemently protested against the fatal 
march almost into the valley of death until at length 
he turned away and cried out to Havelock to lead 
on the troops " in God's name." 

From the housetops, from the windows, from the 
cross-streets, there poured an unrelenting fire on the 
devoted band, who could only stay now and then to 
send a volley through the side-alleys held by masses 
of sepoys and infuriated women. 

Outram, on his big Australian horse, was the first 
to scramble through a breach on the left of the 
Bailey Guard, and in a moment " big, rough-bearded 
soldiers," writes a lady, one of the survivors of the 
garrison, " were seizing the little children out of our 
arms, kissing them with tears rolling down their 
cheeks, and thanking God that they had come in 
time to save them from the fate of those at Cawnpur." 

To the besieged Havelock brought no supplies, his 
food and baggage had been left at the Alambagh. 
The provisions in the Residency were, however, found 
to be much larger than had been reported. The 
defences were extended, and thereby necessarily 
weakened, being more exposed to the mining opera- 
tions. The garrison was reinforced but not relieved. 
The Relief of Lucknow had yet to come — a relief to 
be effected by Colin Campbell. 

Sir Colin Campbell — Old Khabarder, or Old Take- 
Care, as his soldiers loved to call him — was on 

21 




SIR COLIN CAMPBELL, LORD CLYDE. 



SIP COLIN CAMPBELL. $0? 

the nth of July, 1857, asked when he could start 
from England to take the chief command in India. 
" To-morrow," he curtly replied. He was then sixty- 
five years of age. He had seen service in the 
American War of 1842, in the second Sikh war of 
1848-9, he had commanded the Highland Brigade in 
the Crimea, at Alma, and Balaklava. On the 17th 
of August, 1857, he landed at Calcutta to take chief 
command. " No advance will take place without me," 
he wrote to Outram on the 28th of September, " even 
if it be made with a single regiment," and to the 
Duke of Cambridge he afterwards added, " The des- 
perate street-fighting so gallantly conducted by Sir 
James Outram and General Havelock — the only 
course open to them — must, if possible, be avoided in 
future." It was not, however, until the 3rd of Novem- 
ber that the Commander-in-Chief reached Cawnpur, 
and placed himself at the head of a small army of 
5,000 men and 30 guns. Nearly 2,500 of these were 
composed of Colonel Greathed's column, which had 
marched from Delhi and driven 7,000 of Sindhia's 
rebellious troops from before Agra. At Cawnpur he 
left General Windham with 500 English troops and 
550 native infantry and gunners to hold the canton- 
ments and bridge of boats across the Ganges and to 
watch the rebel force from Gwalior and Kalpi. 

On the 10th of November Colin Campbell was 
met by Lucknow Kavanagh, who nobly won the 
Victoria Cross by passing from the Residency dis- 
guised as a native and making his way through 
60,000 rebels, massed in and around the city, to 
carry plans and news from Outram to the Com- 



308 THE MUTINY. 

mander- in -Chief. Instead of advancing straight 
through Lucknow Sir Colin Campbell fought his 
way by the suburbs, captured the Dilkusha, or Palace 
of Heart's Delight, and the Martiniere College, a 
building erected by a French officer of fortune, 
Claude Martin. The Secundra Bagh, a square 450 
feet each way, held by the rebels, was carried by the 
93rd Highlanders, the 53rd, and 4th Punjab Rifles, 
who slew 2,500 of the best fighting-men in Oudh, 
a brigade of three full regiments. 

The Shah Najaf, a strong domed mosque, with 
thick, heavy walls forty feet high, held out against 
the English cannonade for the whole afternoon, until 
Captain Peel, of the Shannon, and his British sailors 
came to the rescue, and in the words of the Com- 
mander-in-Chiefs despatch " the heavy guns were 
within 20 yards of the Shah Najaf, where they 
were unlimbered and poured in round after round 
against the massive walls of the building, the wither- 
ing fire of the Highlanders covering the naval brigade 
from great loss. But it was an action almost unex- 
ampled in war. Captain Peel behaved very much as 
if he had been laying the Shannon alongside an 
enemy's frigate." A breach was at length made, 
but when Adrian Hope and fifty of his men climbed 
in they found the building deserted. 

On the 17th the Mess House, after six hours' 
fighting, was carried by a detachment of the 53 rd 
and a company of the 90th Foot, led by Captain 
Wolseley, now Commander-in-Chief of the British 
army, the British flag being placed on its summit amid 
a shower of bullets by Lieutenant Roberts, now Field- 



RETREAT FROM LUCK NOW. 309 

Marshal Lord Roberts. The observatory and Pearl 
Palace were next carried, followed by the historic 
meeting between Campbell, Havelock, and Outram. 
The congratulations were soon damped by Sir 
Colin Campbell's order that within twenty-four 
hours the garrison and army should quit Lucknow 
and march back to Cawnpur. 

The wounded and sick were carried out and by 
the night of the 22nd of November, the last man 
had marched from the entrenchments at Lucknow. 
One officer, Captain Waterman, was in the con- 
fusion left behind asleep. On waking up he found 
the well-known haunts abandoned and silent, and 
himself surrounded by some 40,000 rebel sepoys, 
who were still firing on the deserted posts. From 
this strange scene of war and silent desolation he 
escaped to join the rear-guard, half-crazed from fear. 
On the 23rd of November the Commander-in-Chief 
was able to write, " The movement of retreat of last 
night by which the final rescue of the garrison was 
effected was a model of discipline and exactness. 
The consequence was that the enemy was completely 
deceived, and the force retired by a narrow tortuous 
lane, the only line of retreat open, in the face of 50,000 
enemies without molestation." 

On the morning of the 24th of November the soul 
of the noble-minded Henry Havelock passed away. 
He died at the Dilkusha Gardens at the age of 
sixty-two. 

As the soldiers marched on to Cawnpur they buried 
him in the Alambagh gardens, where they carved 
the letter H. on a tree to mark his last resting-place. 



3IO THE MUTINY. 

He did not live to receive the baronetcy and pension 
granted him, they had to be handed on to his son 
and widow, yet from all came tributes to the memory 
of the heroic soldier-saint. 

Outram was left to guard the Alambagh ; Colin 
Campbell, with the garrison he had relieved, marched 
back to Cawnpur, only to find that in his absence 
General Windham had been defeated by Tantia Topi, 
and was now surrounded by an army of 25,000 rebels, 
mostly mutinous troops of Sindhia from Gwalior. 

Sir Colin Campbell at once sent his sick, wounded 
and the rescued women and children away to Alla- 
habad, and then led out his troops against the army 
surrounding Cawnpur under the command of the 
Nana Sahib, Tantia Topi, and Koer Singh the Raja 
of Jagdispur. The enemy's right was driven in by 
three brigades under Adrian Hope, Walpole, and 
Inglis, and their artillery silenced by a 24-pounder 
dragged up by Peel's sailors. The whole of the 
Gwalior contingent retreated, being pursued and cut 
up for a distance of fourteen miles. Nana Sahib 
escaped to a ferry over the Ganges, twenty-five miles 
above Cawnpur, all his guns and baggage were 
taken, and his followers driven into the river, the 
boats in which they endeavoured to escape being 
fired on and sunk. 

By the middle of March, 1858, Lucknow was finally 
recaptured, but the rebels were unfortunately allowed 
to escape across the Gumti, to swarm for months 
afterwards round Nana Sahib in Rohilkhand and 
the leading chieftains in Oudh, until they were 
driven over the frontier into Nepal, where they 



SIR HUGH ROSE IN CENTRAL INDIA. 3 1 I 

perished miserably in the jungles or surrendered to 
the overwhelming forces that slowly closed in on 
them from all sides. 

While Sir Colin Campbell, who had been raised to 
the peerage as Lord Clyde, was slowly and cautiously 
driving the rebels before him in Oudh and Rohilk- 
hand, Sir Hugh Rose, by his rapid marches in Central 
India, carried out without a single check a series of 
operations which for brilliancy, dash, and daring are 
without a parallel in the history of military operations 
in India. Starting from Holkar's capital at Indore 
where he had restored order, he, early in 1858, with 
two columns of 4,500 men, including four native 
regiments, captured the forts of Rathgarh and 
Barodia, and by the 3rd of February relieved the 
garrison at Sagar, where a handful of Europeans 
had for eight weary months desperately defended 
170 women and children from the rebel sepoys. 

On the 13th of February he captured the strong 
fort of Garhakota and forced the pass of Mundinpur, 
by taking the enemy's defences in the rear, which 
so terrified them that they fled panic-stricken, and 
left clear the road to Jhansi, where, ten months before 
Captain Skene, the Resident, and sixty-seven English 
men, women, and children had been marched in re- 
ligious procession through the town and slain, amid 
the fierce cries of the fanatic Muhammadan priests 

The fortress, built of solid granite, sixteen to twenty 
feet in length, on a steep precipitous rock, was held 
by 11,000 men, headed by their fierce Rani Ganga 
Bai, who had sworn an undying vengeance against 
the English rulers for having refused to recognise 



312 THE MUTINY. 

her adopted child as heir to her dead husband's 
principality. 

For eight days the bristling guns from the fort 
answered back shot for shot the besieging batteries. 
Sir Hugh Rose at length determined to save his 
ammunition and assault the almost dismantled fort 
and city. Before the attack could be delivered news 
came that Tantia Topi had crossed the river Betwa> 
and was marching at the head of 20,000 troops to 
the Rani's aid. Sir Hugh Rose at once left his 
heavy guns playing on the city, and with 1,500 of 
his men marched to meet Tantia Topi, who advanced 
at the head of his hosts confident of an easy victory. 
Before the British artillery and cavalry the rebels 
fell back dismayed, the ground for sixteen miles was 
strewn with abandoned guns, stores, and ammunition, 
1,500 of Tantia Topi's troops fell, the rest, disbanded 
and broken, fled across the Betwa back towards 
Kalpi. The wearied troops of Sir Hugh Rose, some 
of whom had not for seventeen days and nights taken 
off their clothes nor unbridled their horses, had to 
turn back for the attack on Jhansi. After a desperate 
resistance the fort fell, and half the garrison was 
slain, but the brave Queen escaped on horseback 
with her infant stepson through the outposts of the 
British camp. 

The forces of Tantia Topi and those of the escaped 
Jhansi Rani made a stand at Kunch, whence they 
were driven after a fight which lasted from daybreak 
till nine at night on the 7th of May, with a loss of 
six hundred men and fifteen guns, the pursuit being 
maintained by the exhausted British troops at foot- 



THE RAN/ OF JHANSI. 313 

pace. Under a terrible heat, reaching uo° in the 
shade, natives and Europeans struggled on, many 
falling dead by the roadside, many in greater numbers 
than those slain by the enemy being carried back 
delirious. 

Sir Hugh Rose, who was himself three times 
rendered insensible from sunstroke, wrote on the 
22nd of May after the final attack, when the rebels 
were driven out of Kalpi, " It was 119 in the shade, 
and 200 men out of less than 400 of the 25th Native 
Infantry fell out of the ranks stricken by the sun." 

On news of the success of the campaign, Lord 
Canning at once telegraphed to Sir Hugh Rose, 
" Your capture of Kalpi has crowned a series of 
brilliant and uninterrupted successes. I thank you 
and your brave soldiers with all my heart." 

During the campaign Sir Hugh Rose and his 
force suffered so severely that under medical advice 
he was ordered to take immediate leave to Bombay 
and send his troops into cantonments. 

Preparations had been made for a cessation of 
military operations when news was received that 
Sindhia's troops at Gwalior had mutinied and placed 
themselves, their fort with its arsenal-guns and 
supplies, under the command of Tantia Topi, and 
the Rani of Jhansi, who now had a force of some 
18,000 troops to oppose to the worn-out British 
army. On the 16th of June Sir Hugh Rose, joined 
by Brigadier-General Napier, drove the rebels from 
the Morar cantonments, while Brigadier Smith cap- 
tured the heights to the east of Gwalior. In the 
engagement the Jhansi Queen, wearing her usual 



314 THE MUTINY. 

manly costume, a red jacket and trousers and white 
turban, was slain in a charge of the 8th Hussars, 
the rebel army thus losing their noblest and bravest 
leader who died amid the universal mourning of her 
people at the early age of twenty. 

By the 19th of June Gwalior was captured by 
Lieutenants Rose and Waller, who, with a handful 
of men, crept up the hillside and broke in the gates 
of the fort, Rose paying with his life for the daring 
enterprise. 

The Gwalior mutineers threw away their arms and 
ammunition and fled far away over the country, pur- 
sued by General Napier. Tantia Topi was captured 
by Captain, afterwards Sir Richard, Meade, and 
executed at Sipri on the iSth of April, 1859; Nana 
Sahib disappeared in the Nepal jungles and was 
never heard of more, though an occasional tele- 
gram in our daily papers still announces some 
foolish story of his reappearance. The surrender 
of the last 4,000 of his followers to Brigadier 
Holditch put an end to the final period of the 
Mutiny. 

Peace once restored, the Government of India passed 
from the Company to the Queen, who, on the 1st of 
November, 1858, in her Proclamation — the Magna 
Charta of the people of India — declared the future 
policy of British rule in India: "We hereby announce 
to the Native Princes of India that all treaties, 
engagements made with them by or under the 
authority of the Honourable East India Company 
are by us accepted, and will be scrupulously 
maintained, and We look for a like observance on 



, the queen's proclamation. 31 5 

their part. We desire no extensions of Our present 
territorial possessions ; and while We will permit no 
aggression upon Our dominions or Our Rights to be 
attempted with impunity, We shall sanction no en- 
croachment on those of others, We shall respect the 
rights, dignity, and honour of Native Princes as Our 
own ; and we desire that they — as well as our own 
subjects — should enjoy prosperity, and that social ad- 
vancement, which can only be secured by internal 
peace and good government. We hold ourselves bound 
to the Natives of Our Indian territories by the same 
obligations of duty, which bind us to all Our other 
subjects, and those obligations by the Blessing of 
God, we shall faithfully and conscientiously fulfil. 
Firmly relying Ourselves on the truth of Christianity 
and acknowledging with gratitude the solace of re- 
ligion, we disclaim alike the right and the desire to 
impose our convictions on any of our subjects." 

To all those who had remained loyal and rendered 
services, rewards in money and land, honours and 
decorations, were bestowed with no stinting hand, 
while to repentant Talukdars of Oudh who were 
guiltless of shedding blood their estates were returned 
with an hereditary and permanent title. 

In the sepoy army sweeping changes were made. 
At the close of the year preceding the Mutiny, the 
army, which consisted of six natives to every Euro- 
pean, was after the Mutiny reduced to the proportions 
of two natives to one European, and the artillery was 
placed almost entirely in the hands of Europeans. 

The Mutiny left behind it a heavy burden on the 
people of India. The National Debt had grown from 



3 l6 THE MUTINY. 

59J millions sterling to nearly 89 millions, and the 
three years of the Mutiny ended in a deficit of over 
30 millions sterling — a serious one when, with an income 
of not 37 millions, it was estimated that the year i860 
would end in a further deficit of 6J millions. To 
restore the financial equilibrium Mr. Wilson, the new 
Finance Minister, was obliged to place an income-tax 
of 4 per cent, on all incomes above £50 a year, and 
2 per cent, on all incomes from ^"20 to ^50, but had 
to relinquish a proposed taxation of tobacco, and a 
license-tax on trades and professions. Mr. Samuel 
Laing, who succeeded Mr. Wilson, abolished the 
income-tax on all incomes under ^50 a year, and 
effected a reduction of 3J millions on military 
expenses, and half a million on civil expenditure. 
During the period from 1856 to 1862 the natural 
growth in the land revenue, showed an increase of 
2\ millions sterling so that Lord Canning was able 
to declare in 1862 "that he left India in peace and 
prosperity." 

Blind, weak, and incapable as Lord Canning's de- 
tractors judged him, still the proudest boast of his 
country will ever be that while hasty counsel urged 
him to wage an almost justifiable war of retribution, 
he had courage to declare that " no taunts or sarcasms, 
come from what quarter they may, will turn me from 
the path which L believe to be that of my public 
duty." He had stood calm, proudly reserved and 
unmoved though the raging storm of race hatred 
surged around and almost threatened to sweep him 
away in its tempestuous passion. He had risked his 
reputation and sacrificed his life to carry out his trust 



THE END. 



31? 



in the full determination to deliver it again into her 
Majesty's hands " without spot or stain from any act 
or word." He left India tired, wan, and broken 
down, to receive, within a few months' time, the 
news that he was a dying man with the weary cry, 
" What ! so soon ? " 




XV. 



INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 



Lord Elgin succeeded Lord Canning on the 12th 
of March, 1 862, and died within two years. The work 
of Government was carried on by Sir William Denison, 
Governor of Madras, until the arrival of the new 
Viceroy, Sir" John Lawrence, who reached India on 
the 1 2th of January, 1864. 

India was in the meantime engaged in a disastrous 
frontier campaign, which at one time called forth for 
its suppression the whole available military resources 
of the Government. To the west of the Indus, amid 
the fastnesses of the outlying spurs of the Hindu Kush, 
a band of fanatic Muhammadans, known as Wahabis, 
had formed a colony, whence they had spread sedi- 
tious exhortations to all true Muhammadans to aid 
with money, arms, and prayers in an unrelenting war 
against unbelievers. To their strongholds of Sitana, 
Jadun, and Malka in the Mahaban, or Mountains of 
the Great Forest, mutinous sepoys from the lowlands, 
wild Pathans and fierce Afn'dis flocked in numbers, 
all eager to join in raiding the lowland villages 

and glad to swell the band of those whose lawless 

318 



THE WAHABIS. 319 

instincts were sanctioned by a fanatic zeal for the 
welfare of the Muhammadan faith. In 1853, an d 
again in 1858, their fastnesses had been raided and 
their abiding-place at Sitana burned to the ground, 
but still recruits from the Muhammadan cities in the 
Punjab, in Behar and Bengal, flocked to the standard 
of revolt. 

At length, in October, 1863, Brigadier-General Sir 
Neville Chamberlain, was directed to march against 
them at the head of 7,000 picked troops. At the 
Ambela Pass he was met by a force of 15,000 fighting 
men who had assembled to resent the threatened 
invasion of their mountain homes. The British force 
was hemmed in, and for three weeks the camp could 
only hold its own. From all quarters new troops were 
hurried forward, the pass was cleared, and by the 15th 
of December General Garvock, brought the tribesmen 
to terms. On the 22nd of December the Wahabi 
settlement at Malka was burned, and the expedition 
retired, having lost over one-tenth of its total number. 

Three weeks after the Ambela campaign was ended, 
Sir John Lawrence arrived in India, where he ruled 
until January, 1869, having, during his long service 
from the time he first landed on the 9th of February, 
1830, held every post from Assistant to the Resident 
at Delhi up to Viceroy. A few days before he 
reached Calcutta Mr. Ashley Eden had been de- 
spatched from Darjiling on a mission to the capital of 
Bhutan, a wild, unsettled country lying amid the 
Himalayas to the north of Assam and Bengal, whence 
the wild Buddhist Tartars who inhabited the land 
yearly raided the lowland valleys, carrying off the 



320 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 

cattle from the British villages. The Embassy and 
its slender escort of one hundred sepoys, struggled on 
through the snow-clad mountain ranges, their passage 
opposed by the native chiefs who extorted bribes from 
the envoy and delayed his progress. When Punakha, 
the winter capital, was reached, Mr. Ashley Eden was 
subjected to many gross insults, and ultimately forced, 
under threats of imprisonment, to sign a humiliating 
treaty whereby it was agreed that the passes leading 
from Assam should be surrendered to Bhutan. To 
this treaty the British envoy affixed his signature, 
taking care, however, to add that he signed " under 
compulsion." He then escaped by night and brought 
back to India the news of the result of his mission. 
The treaty was at once repudiated, and three months 
given to the rulers of Bhutan to send in their sub- 
mission. No answer was received and war was 
declared. The forts commanding the passes from 
Bengal were captured and occupied, but Colonel 
Campbell and a garrison of five hundred men were 
surprised while holding Diwangiri, and though they 
easily repelled the first assaults, their ammunition ran 
short and the water was cut off, so they were obliged 
to retire, and leave behind two guns and their sick and 
wounded to the care of the enemy. Brigadier Henry 
Tombs hurried up with reinforcements and soon 
terminated the ignominious warfare against a con- 
temptible and ignorant foe. The eighteen dwars, or 
passes, leading from Bengal and Assam, were sur- 
rendered by the Bhutias under promise of a yearly 
subsidy, thus adding a tea-growing district some 1 80 
miles long by 20 to 30 broad to British territory. 



FAMINE. 321 

Urgent though the necessity was of keeping the 
land secure from invasion and the peaceful lowland 
villages safe from pillage and the firebrand, the new 
Governor-General had to devise means to meet a 
nearer danger arising from the ravages of pestilence 
and famine. From time immemorial the husbandmen 
in the rich river valleys of India have ploughed their 
lands, sown their seed, and reaped the produce calmly 
indifferent to the coming and going of their foreign 
rulers, knowing that to all alike they must pay tribute. 
War to them is but one of the great evils flowing from 
princes and kings whose rule must be endured, but 
from the two great terrors, arising from gods and 
immortals — pestilence and famine — they fly in terror 
or else sit silent in their homes waiting for death. 

In the year 1866 utter desolation spread over the 
district of Orissa and one million of its inhabitants, 
one-fourth of the entire population, perished from 
starvation. The district lay within easy reach of 
plenty, and was fertile enough to have exported 
50,000 lbs. of rice the previous year, yet in 1867 it 
was rendered an uninhabitable desert. 

These alluvial littoral tracts, lying along the shores 
of the Bay of Bengal, were then not only shut in from 
Central India by high mountains and inaccessible 
from the sea while the monsoon winds raged, but were 
unapproachable from the north or south in consequence 
of the bad roads and unbridged rivers, over which lay 
the only means of communication from Calcutta or 
Madras. 

When, in September, 1865, the rains failed and the 
fields were parched, the people prayed for remission 

22 



322 . INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 

of the land revenue, for there remained to them neither 
money nor food. It is impossible for the British 
administration in India to tell what grain lies hidden 
under ground in the village store-pits, or how much is 
held back by the merchants who hope to gain a rich 
harvest when prices rise high or when scarcity passes 
into actual famine. So in 1865 the chief Revenue 
authorities saw no reason for alarm ; the land of Orissa 
was the richest in India ; rice was reported to be held 
in plenty by the village merchants, and it was expected 
that more would be imported by private enterprise 
when prices commenced to rise. In May, 1866, the 
news suddenly reached Sir John Lawrence that the 
people were actually dying in their thousands, that 
along the sandy and worn-out roads no carts could 
travel, while ships laden with food lay tossing at the 
mercy of the waves near the coast, no boat from the 
shore being able to reach them on account of the 
monsoon winds. Famine amid surrounding plenty 
devastated Orissa and Ganjam. Cholera, fever, and 
disease stalked abroad among the emaciated people 
who strove to support life by eating the shrivelled 
leaves of the stunted shrubs and earth from the 
ant-hills. 

When the long-looked-for rain at length* came, the 
wide Mahanadi rose in flood, broke its high banks, 
and spread its waters over a district one thousand 
square miles in extent. The new-sown crops were 
covered, and \\ millions of the despairing population 
driven from their homes. 

The terrible loss incurred during the short course 
of the Orissa famine, and the suddenness with which 



PROTECTIVE WORKS. 323 

the disaster passed beyond control, compelled the 
Government in 1868, when the rains again failed in 
Northern India, to notify to the district officers that 
they would be held directly responsible for all loss of 
life that could possibly be prevented. Wells were 
immediately dug, the land revenue was remitted, food 
from Oudh was hurried to the threatened districts 
in British territory, where loss of life was happily 
averted, while in the native states of Rajputana up- 
wards of half a million people perished in two years. 

The question of prevention and mitigation of famine 
long remained the gravest problem of Indian ad- 
ministration. During recent years all the skill and 
resources within reach of a Western civilisation have 
been ceaselessly called upon to devise means whereby 
these sufferings of the people might in some degree, 
at least, be alleviated. A new Department of Irriga- 
tion, for the purpose of planning and constructing 
canals for the protection of districts liable to drought 
or floods, was instituted under Colonel Richard 
Strachey. New works, costing some quarter of a 
million sterling, were carried out before John Law- 
rence left India, and plans had been prepared for 
others, estimated to cost at least ^30,000,000, within 
ten years. 

The construction of railways was pushed forward, 
and 1,556 miles of rail were opened up in five years, 
so that India, which possessed only 21 J miles of rail- 
way in 1853, na cl 4,000 miles opened up by 1868. 
These railways, which cost ;£ 17,000 per mile, were 
constructed with money raised upon the security of 
a State guarantee of 5 per cent, interest, so that 



324 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 

the shareholders incurred no risk. It was not till the 
Northern Punjab Railway was commenced that State 
railways were constructed and money raised at from 
3 to 4 per cent., the line being carried out on the 
narrow-gauge system, or one metre in width, costing 
only some ^"6,000 per mile. 

Though the rice-growing districts on the east 
coast suffered so terribly from famine, the cotton- 
growing tracts on the west had enjoyed undreamed- 
of prosperity. 

During the period of the American Civil War the 
demand for Indian cotton, for the Lancashire mills, 
in consequence of the supply from America having 
ceased, became so great that the price in Bombay 
rose fourfold. When the war came to an abrupt 
close in 1865, the American cotton, with its long 
staple, again easily ousted the Indian cotton in the 
home markets, and the Indian merchants and culti- 
vators were suddenly deprived of their new-found 
means of wealth. The wages of labour fell to their 
normal condition ; the cotton merchants in Bombay 
failed one after another. Companies, started in the 
days of prosperity for visionary schemes of land re- 
clamation, mining, tea-planting, and every form of 
wild and impossible project, immediately collapsed. 
The final blow came in 1866, when the Bombay 
Bank, empowered by a new charter granted in 1864 
by Sir Bartle Frere, the Governor of Bombay, to 
make large advances on other than Government 
securities, failed, half its capital was lost in place of 
which it held some two millions of useless debts. 
Not only were the merchants involved in the ruin, 



RUSSIAN ADVANCES. 325 

but also many of the Government officials who had 
trusted their long-earned savings to a bank they had 
considered secure from its close connection with the 
Government. The general depression was further 
increased by the fact that the extraordinary expendi- 
ture on reproductive works, joined to an increasing 
ordinary expenditure resulted in a deficit of eleven 
millions sterling during the three years from 1866 to 
1869. 

The financial position was undoubtedly grave, and 
yearly became more complicated, owing to demands 
for funds over and above those necessary for internal 
defence, development of the resources of the country, 
and protection against famine and pestilence. 

The pressing nature of these demands can be 
best estimated from the fact that from the year 
1800, when Paul I., the Russian Czar, strove to gain 
the aid of Napoleon in his first advance from the 
Caspian towards Herat, Kandahar, and the Indus, 
down to the year 1885, when Mr. Gladstone de- 
manded an immediate vote of £11,000,000 from 
the English Parliament to prepare for a war which 
appeared inevitable, the Indian Government has 
deemed it necessary to spend upwards of 70 
millions sterling in securing the north-west passes 
from any possibility of invasion, while the annual 
expenditure on frontier fortifications has increased so 
grievously as almost to lend justification to the 
present contention that the finances of India have 
been reduced to the verge of bankruptcy. 

The question first came within the sphere of 
practical politics six months before John Lawrence 



326 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 

landed in Calcutta, when the Amir of Afghanis- 
tan, Dost Muhammad, died at Herat, and left his 
kingdom to his son Sher All, passing over his two 
elder sons Afzul and Azim, both born of a mother 
less noble than the mother of Sher All. In 1864 
Muhammad Afzul Khan rose in rebellion and pro- 
claimed himself Amir at Balkh ; Azim hurried from 
his Governorship at Kuram to the aid of his elder 
brother, while among the other sixteen of Dost 
Muhammad's sons a fratricidal war commenced. 

Towards the fighting brothers Lawrence steadily 
maintained a policy of " non-intervention " ; and to 
whichever brother succeeded in establishing himself 
in power at Kabul, Herat, or Kandahar, friendly 
letters of congratulation were sent. 

By September, 1868, Sher Alf succeeded in 
establishing himself as Amir of Afghanistan, his 
brother Azim fled as a fugitive to Turkestan, and 
Abdur Rahman, son of Afzul, escaped to Khiva, 
thence to Bokhara and Tashkend, in Turkestan, 
where he received a pension of 18,000 roubles from 
the Russian Government. When Sher All was com- 
pletely in possession of his father's dominions the 
Viceroy offered him a sum of ^"60,000, along with 
3,500 muskets, in accordance with the strongly ex- 
pressed opinion of Sir Henry Rawlinson, who wrote : 
" Whatever the price it must be paid, of such para- 
mount importance is it to obtain at the present 
time a dominant position at Kabul, and to close 
that avenue of approach against Russia." 

Unfortunately the ruler of Afghanistan was now 
wearied with the English, who had stood aloof during 



A FGHA NIS TAN. 327 

times of trouble and dissension, only to come forward, 
when peace was established, to make friends with him 
when he had risen to power. More than once Sher 
All sought to gain the aid and alliance of Russia — 
a course Sir John Lawrence determined to oppose, 
for, as he wrote to the Home Government, it was 
now time to inform Russia " in firm but courteous 
language that it cannot be permitted to interfere in 
the affairs of Afghanistan." 

Lord Mayo succeeded to the Governor-Generalship 
in 1869, and Sher All came to Ambala hoping to 
gain from the new Viceroy an alliance offensive and 
defensive against all his enemies. From Lord Mayo 
the Amir could obtain no treaty, no promise of a 
fixed allowance, not even a recognition of himself 
and his descendants as possessing a right to rule in 
Afghanistan. The Governor could only declare that 
" we are prepared to give him all the moral support 
in our power ; and that in addition we are willing to 
assist him with money, arms and ammunition, native 
artificers, and in other ways, whenever we deem it 
desirable to do so." 

To Lord Mayo it seemed well that the people of 
Afghanistan should gradually and surely learn that 
on no pretext would a British soldier cross their 
frontiers to interfere in their internal affairs. He 
hoped that an agreement could be made with Russia 
whereby both nations would consent to abstain from 
interfering with the dominions held by Sher All, 
and accept the Oxus as the northern boundary of 
Afghanistan. 

In January, 1873, the boundaries to the north of 



328 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 

Afghanistan were fixed, Russia consenting to waive 
any objections to Badakshan and Wakhan being in- 
cluded in the territories held by the Amfr, Sher All. 
The safest policy for the Indian Government to 
pursue with regard to Afghanistan had been in- 
dicated by Sir John Lawrence in the following 
words : " We think it impolitic and unwise to 
decrease any of the difficulties which would be en- 
tailed on Russia, if that Power seriously thought of 
invading India, as we should constantly decrease 
them if we left our own frontier and met her half- 
way in a difficult country and possibly in the midst 
of a hostile or exasperated population. We see no 
limit to the expenditure which such a move might 
require, and we protest against the necessity of 
having to impose taxation on the people of India." 
In his opinion the threatened danger could only 
be averted by " husbanding our finances and con- 
solidating and multiplying our resources in quiet 
preparation for all contingencies which no Indian 
statesman should disregard." 

The importance of this policy was further forced on 
Lord Mayo by the fact that, in addition to the deficit 
of eleven millions sterling accruing from the years 
1866-69, the estimates for 1869-70, his first year of 
office, disclosed on examination a further probable 
heavy deficit of nearly if millions sterling. Not- 
withstanding the urgency of providing for a possible 
recurrence of famine and the necessity of opening up 
the resources and trade of the country by an exten- 
sion of railways, as well as providing for the defence 
of the North-west Frontier, Lord Mayo wrote : " I am 



DEATH OF LORD MAYO. 329 

determined not to have another deficit, if it lead to 
the diminution of the Army, the reduction of Civil 
Establishments, and the stoppage of Public Works." 

By curtailment of the grant for public works, by 
reduction of the amount for local expenditure, by 
raising the income-tax from 1 to 2J per cent., and 
by increasing the salt duties in Bombay and Madras, 
the Viceroy succeeded in changing an expected 
deficit of £1,650,000 into a surplus of £108,000. 
During the next three years, from 1 870-1 to 1872-3, 
Lord Mayo's financial reforms resulted in a surplus of 
£5,840,134. 

All Lord Mayo's efforts for the welfare of India 
came to a sad close on the 8th of February, 1872, 
when he was stabbed by a convict while inspecting 
the convict settlement of the Andaman Islands. 

A vivid and impressive account is given in the 
Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, edited by 
his brother, Leslie Stephen, of the solemnity of the 
mournful procession, when the body of the dead 
Viceroy was borne through the streets of Calcutta. 
The terrible reality seems to have struck the minds 
of all the sorrowing onlookers that they were but 
a band of foreigners asserting their right to wage 
a war for Western civilisation amid a hostile people 
who would willingly free themselves, if possible, 
from the galling restraints under which their peace 
and prosperity were assured. In a letter from 
Calcutta, dated February 23, 1872, Sir James 
Stephen described his feelings, which must have 
been common to many of the onlookers : " I never 
expected to be impressed by a mere ceremonial, 



330 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 

but there were some things almost oppressive from 
their reality and solemnity. . . . The whole road was 
lined with troops on both sides, but they stood at 
intervals of several yards, and there was an immense 
crowd close behind, in some places in between them. 
. . . I saw some suspicious-looking fellows grinning 
and sneering and showing their teeth myself, and 
I felt as if I could have killed them. No one who 
has not felt it can imagine how we all feel out here 
in regard to such matters. When Lord Mayo was 
stabbed I think every man in the country felt as if 
he had been more or less stabbed himself. . . . There 
was a dead silence all the way and the Europeans as 
grim as death." 

A few days after he describes the scene when the 
coffin was carried to the ship. " You cannot imagine 
the awful solemnity which all this precaution gave the 
whole thing. It was like marching through a city 
half dead and half besieged. . . . There was a stern 
look of reality about the whole affair quite unlike 
what one has seen elsewhere. Troops and cannon 
and gun-carriages seem out of place in England . . . 
but it is a very different matter here where everything 
rests upon military force. The guns and the troops 
are not only the outward and visible marks of power, 
but they are the power itself to a great extent." 

Facts such as these, apparent to most British 
officials in India, military and civil alike, have a 
significance more or less definitely indicated by the 
tacit silence universally held by all thoughtful men 
when their opinion is sought on Indian affairs, for 
they know full well the appalling catastrophe that 



LORD NORTHBROOK. 33 1 

would sweep over the land, rolling away innocent 
and guilty alike, if once the spring were recklessly 
loosened which at present holds all quiet in a 
seeming sleep of peace and amity. 

When Lord Northbrook landed at Calcutta in May, 
1872, and assumed charge of the Government from 
Lord Napier, India was at peace,, the finances satis- 
factory, and hopes entertained that the income-tax 
might be abolished, a surplus of if millions being 
expected on the year's estimates. Trade was pros- 
perous, having grown rapidly since the opening in 
1 869 of the Suez Canal. The new Viceroy was free 
to view calmly the pressing questions daily becoming 
more important, arising from the steady advance of 
Russia towards the Hindu Kush. 

By 1865 General Kaufmann reached Samarkand, 
and Bokhara had become tributary to the Czar. By 
June, 1873, Khiva fell, and the territories of the Khan 
up to the right bank of the Oxus were annexed. 
The Amir of Afghanistan, alarmed for the safety of 
his own kingdom, at once sent an envoy with all 
speed to Simla to learn from Lord Northbrook if he 
could depend on the English for help in the event 
of his own lands being invaded. 

England had been assured by the Russian Govern- 
ment that Afghanistan lay outside the sphere of 
her conquests, so Lord Northbrook sent back word 
to the Amir that there was no cause for alarm* 
that the English Government was prepared to 
aid him with money and supplies, and in case of 
necessity even to send troops to his help, if he con- 
tinued to follow the advice of the Viceroy and give 



33 2 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 

no cause of offence by aggression against Russian 
territory. The Amir received the message of the 
Viceroy with scant courtesy. The arms forwarded to 
him were accepted, but five lakhs of rupees, offered 
as a compensation for the loss of a portion of 
Seistan, were not accepted. Sher All had deter- 
mined to set his face away from the ruling powers 
in India, and closely watch the advance of Russia. 
In Lord Salisbury's opinion, however, it was neces- 
sary that the Amir of Afghanistan should be called 
upon to receive a British Agency at Kabul, so 
that immediate information might be obtained of 
Russian operations on the frontiers, and timely 
remonstrances be made at St. Petersburg by a 
British envoy. Lord Northbrook thought otherwise. 
He knew well the inveterate objection the Amir had 
always manifested to the presence of British officers 
at Kabul, and he was satisfied that accurate informa- 
tion of the affairs of Afghanistan could be obtained 
from the native Indian envoy then resident at the 
Court of the Amir. The Viceroy and his Council 
accordingly felt compelled to protest against the 
policy of forcing a British Embassy on Afghanistan, 
and in 1876 the Viceroy felt it necessary to request 
that he should be relieved, on the grounds of ill- 
health, from the duties of his office. 

During Lord Northbrook's administration three 
important events happened. In 1873-4 a threatened 
famine in Lower Bengal was averted by timely 
relief and the purchase of grain. The Gaekwar 
of Baroda was tried on a charge of having en- 
deavoured to poison the British Resident, Colonel 



FAMINE. 333 

Phayre, by mixing poison with his sherbet, and 
after a famous trial deposed for misgovernment. 
During the cold weather of 1875-6 the visit of the 
Prince of Wales produced an outburst of emotional 
loyalty, showing how deep down in the hearts of 
the people still lay their devotion to' the ideal of a 
feudal sovereignty. 

Lord Northbrook was succeeded by Lord Lytton, 
whose imaginative and poetic temperament found full 
play in inaugurating the scene of Oriental pomp and 
splendour, amid which the Queen of England was 
proclaimed Empress of India on the 1st of January, 
1877. 

To those who lived in the south of India during 
1876 and 1877 the memory of those years will ever 
be associated with the wave of desolation of famine 
which swept away 5J millions of the population who 
died in silent suffering, notwithstanding all efforts 
made to save them. To succour the starving people 
over eleven millions of tens of rupees were expended 
by the Government. 

In order to carry out a complete scheme of protec- 
tive works against future famines, and to construct 
new canals and railways, a special license tax on the 
profits, exceeding ^200 a year, of all trades and 
professions was imposed, and with the income thus 
raised 16 \ millions of rupees were expended on pro- 
tective works from 1880 to 1895. 

From the south, where the famine raged, the atten- 
tion of Lord Lytton was directed to the Amir of 
Afghanistan who, in the words of the Viceroy, 
" pretends to hold the balance between England 



334 



INDIA UNDER THE CROWN 




FAMINE GROUP FROM MADRAS. 




ANOTHER FAMINE GROUP FROM MADRAS, 



THE TWO IRON POTS. 335 

and Russia, independent of either." That the Amir 
should distinctly understand the true nature of his 
relationship to the two empires, each watching with 
growing impatience every move made to checkmate 
the other's advance, was told by the Viceroy the un- 
pleasant truth that " his position is rather that of an 
earthen pipkin between two iron pots." At the same 
time the Amir was informed by Lord Salisbury that 
neither by the treaty of 1855, nor by Lord Mayo in 
1869, nor by Lord Northbrook in 1873, " was any 
assurance given of unconditional protection." 

To one thing, however, the Amir was resolved not 
to submit, and that was the entry of any English 
envoy into his dominions. He knew that the ap- 
pearance of an English officer at Kabul would goad 
his wild, fanatic subjects to fury, and that neither 
his own position nor the envoy's life would be 
safe. The Amir had also doubts respecting the in- 
tentions of the English, for he had seen the British 
troops, in November, 1876, take up a permanent 
advanced position at Quetta on the south of his 
dominions — a move he deemed, not unnaturally, to be 
the first step in the advance towards Kandahar and 
Herat. The Amir accordingly, in his reply to the 
Viceroy, stated that he objected to the appointment 
of an envoy, for " We mistrust you, and fear you 
will write all sorts of reports about us, which will 
some day be brought forward against us and lead 
to your taking the control of our affairs out of 
our hands." Lord Lytton, finding that neither 
diplomatic finesse nor harsh threats could force an 
envoy on Afghanistan, peremptorily refused to enter 



336 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 

into further negotiations with the Amir, who was 
left for the future to take what course he deemed 
fit for the preservation of the independence of his 
own dominions. 

In Europe the Russians had crossed the Balkans 
and forced on Turkey the Treaty of San Stefano, 
only to be held in check by England, who mobilised 
her forces and brought to Malta sepoys from India. 
Still, if England could stay the course of Russia 
towards the Mediterranean, Russia could strive to 
shake to its very foundations the British rule in India. 
Before the Peace of Berlin had been signed Stolietoff 
was hurrying from Samarkand to Kabul bearing to 
the Amir a treaty of friendship and alliance. As soon 
as the news reached the Viceroy that a Russian 
Embassy had been received by the Amir, and that 
Russian soldiers were to be seen in the bazaars at 
Kabul, he determined, whether the Amir desired it or 
not, to send an English officer to Afghanistan. 

From Peshawar Sir Neville Chamberlain was 
directed to march with a small escort to Kabul 
through the Khaibar Pass. At All Masjid, the 
first fort commanding the mountain pass, Major 
Cavagnari received a polite intimation that if the 
embassy advanced further its passage would be 
resisted by force of arms. 

In vain Lord Lawrence pleaded that the English 
nation should refrain from imperilling its position by 
advancing beyond its own strong boundaries on the 
Indian frontier to wage war against a foe that would 
never tamely submit to foreign invasion. In vain 
Lord Northbrook urged that since the signing of the 



SIR LOUIS CAVAGNARI. 337 

Treaty of Berlin all fear of danger had passed away. 
War was declared against the Amir on the 21st of 
November, and before the year was out General Sir 
Samuel Browne was encamped with a conquering 
force at Jalalabad ; Sir Donald Stewart had marched 
from Quetta up the Pish in Valley to Kandahar, 
and General Frederick Roberts had made his way 
through the Kuram Valley. The Amir, accom- 
panied by a remnant of the Russian Embassy, fled 
from his capital. On the 21st of February, 1879, 
he died at Balkh, forsaken by his allies, and left his 
son, Yakub Khan, to make what terms he could 
with the English who now held Afghanistan. On 
the 26th of May the Treaty of Gandamak was 
signed, by which the external policy of Afghanistan 
was placed under British control, the districts of 
Kuram, Pishin, and Sibi ceded, the control over 
the tribes guarding the Khaibar and Kuram passes 
relinquished, and a permanent British envoy and 
escort accepted at Kabul. With calm resignation 
Sir Louis Cavagnari, William Jenkins of the Civil 
Service, Dr. Kelly, and Lieutenant Hamilton, V.C., 
with seventy-five of the Guides, rode into the Bala 
Hissar on the 24th of July, 1879, to meet the fate 
foreshadowed by those who knew the deep hatred 
that rankled in the hearts of the fanatic tribesmen 
of Afghanistan against the intruders in their land. 
For five weeks the embassy remained at Kabul in 
the Residency near the Amir's palace. Each day Sir 
Louis Cavagnari reported that all went well. Suddenly, 
on the 3rd of September, the pent-up storm burst 
forth. The city rabble, led on by the wild soldiery 

23 



33S 



INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 



of Herat, came clamouring to the Residency gates. 
The defenders fought long for their 1 ves ; they fell 
one by one, and the last of the Guides perished amid 




KABULIS. 



the flames of the Residency. Lord Lytton had, at 
last, more than justifiable grounds to exact the ut- 
most penalty from the new Amir for his treacherous 



Slid FREDERICK ROBERTS AT KABUL. 339 

violation of a treaty of safe conduct to a British 
Embassy. 

Major-General Sir Frederick Roberts, at the head 
of a force of 5,500 men and twenty guns, marched 
through the Kuram Valley, and received the sub- 
mission of Yakub Khan on the 2nd of October. 
On the 6th the whole Afghan force of some thirteen 
regiments was driven before the advancing force, 
and by the nth Sir Frederick Roberts was before 
the Residency viewing the burnt ruins where Cavag- 
nari and his band had bravely fought and died. 

All guilty of murder or treachery were hunted out 
and punished, the Amir was deported to India, and 
the British army of seven thousand men encamped 
on the heights overlooking Kabul. Towards the 
end of the year the tribesmen gathered together, 
and marched in from all sides against the handful of 
English troops. On the nth of December General 
Massey was sent out towards Ghazni with four horse- 
artillery guns, a troop of the 14th Bengal Lancers, 
and two squadrons of the 9th Lancers, to aid General 
Macpherson in scattering the tribesmen who were 
swarming in from the west towards Kabul. As 
General Massey advanced he suddenly found himself 
face to face with upwards of 10,000 Afghan fighting 
men, who immediately opened fire on the British 
troops. A charge of two hundred of the Lancers 
into the midst of the foe held them back for a 
short time, but at a loss of sixteen men and two 
officers. The British force were outnumbered, and 
retreated. Lieutenant Hardy, of the Horse Artillery, 
fell beside his gun, which had to be spiked, and 



340 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 

the three remaining guns were abandoned in a deep 
watercourse whence they were afterwards brought in 
by Colonel Macgregor. 

As General Massey's force retired, keeping the 
enemy at bay, two hundred men of the 72nd High- 
landers, ordered out by Sir Frederick Roberts, came 
to the rescue, and gaining the village Deh Mazung at 
the gorge of a pass in the hills to the west of the 
Sherpur cantonments, prevented the further advance 
of the Afghan tribesmen. The Afghans, defeated in 
their attempt to rush the cantonments, took posses- 
sion of the hills near Kabul. To their aid reinforce- 
ments poured in from all sides, and daily assailed 
the position held by an army little more than 
that which had retired in the winter of 1841. Sir 
Frederick Roberts, knowing that the enemy would 
soon deliver themselves over into his hands to be 
heavily smitten and broken in pieces, quietly waited 
his time, and withdrew the whole of his troops into 
the cantonments. Ever cool and ever cheerful he 
was to be seen at all hours of the day and night 
passing from post to post, encouraging each soldier, 
leaving nothing to chance. 

On the last night of the Mohurrum, the 23rd of 
December, the ninety years' old chief of Ghazni, 
Mashk-i Alam, who, by his influence, had fanned 
a religious war of extermination against the un- 
believers, sent forth from the heights of Asmai the 
signal, a flame of fire, for a final attack. Some 
30,000 fierce clansmen and trained soldiers, led by 
howling bands of Ghazis, rushed down on the 
camp. Within the entrenchments dead silence 



THE AMIR. 34I 

reigned, to each man his post had been allotted. 
When the Afghan host drew close the sullen roll of 
the musketry rang out from the trenches and bastions 
and volley after volley was poured into the dense 
mass of advancing foes. For hours the fierce 
Afghans strove to gain the defences, till, taken in 
the flank by four guns sent out from an opening in 
the hills to the north, they broke, pursued by the 
cavalry, and left their thousands dead behind, the 
survivors escaping to carry the news of their defeat 
far and wide through the villages of Afghanistan. 

On the 20th of July, 1880, by the direction of Lord 
Ripon, who had succeeded Lord Lytton, it was an- 
nounced to the chiefs and sardars at Kabul by Mr. 
(now Sir) Lepel Griffin that the Viceroy and Govern- 
ment of the Queen-Empress had decided to recognise 
as Amir of Afghanistan Abdur Rahman Khan, grand- 
son of Dost Muhammad, who had long been a 
pensioner in Russian territory. 

A few days later, on July 27th, a terrible disaster 
befel General Burrows' Brigade at Maiwand. Ayub 
Khan, brother of Yakub Khan, had marched from 
Herat to Kandahar, and there met two Bombay 
regiments, six companies of the 66th, a troop of 
horse artillery, and some native cavalry, which he 
utterly routed, inflicting on them a loss of 964 killed 
and 167 wounded. 

Before Abdur Rahman could be left in safety at 
Kabul his opponent, Ayub Khan, had to be crushed 
and the reverse to the English troops retrieved. On 
the 9th of August Sir Frederick Roberts, at the 
head of 10,000 men, 2,835 being Europeans, set out, 



34 2 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 

without wheeled artillery, on his famous march from 
Kabul to Kandahar 320 miles distant. The force 
reached Robat on the 28th, the distance, 303 miles, 
having been covered in twenty days, and in the battle 
of Kandahar, fought on the 1st of September, Ayub 
Khan was defeated, his army dispersed, some 1,000 
of his troops slain and all his guns captured. 

The British troops were gradually withdrawn from 
Afghanistan, and the Kuram and Khaibar Passes 
relinquished in the year 1 880-1. On the 1st of April, 
1 88 1, Kandahar was evacuated and Abdur Rahman 
left to consolidate his power and extend his sway 
over his subjects. 

The remainder of Lord Ripon's administration was 
devoted to the peaceful development of the resources 
of the country. He abolished the import duties, espe- 
cially those_on cotton goods ; he enlarged and extended 
the principle of local self-government, set free the 
vernacular press from the restrictions imposed on it 
by Lord Lytton, extended the criminal jurisdiction 
of native Civil servants of the grade of District Magis- 
trate, re-established the Department of Revenue and 
Agriculture, and made efforts for the encouraging of 
primary education on the lines recommended by an 
Education Commission which he appointed. 

The final expansion of British India took place 
during the Viceroyalty of Lord Dufferin, who, on the 
1st of January, 1886, annexed Upper Burma, Mandalay 
havirg been captured in November, 1885, by General 
Prendergast, in consequence of the barbarities and 
intolerance of King Theebaw. 

In 1885 it seemed that war was almost inevitable 



PANJDEH. 



343 



between Russia and England. On the frontier of 
Afghanistan Sir Peter Lumsden and a Russian 
Commission were engaged in laying down the 




boundaries of the AmiYs dominions and those of 
the Czar. Both sides laid claim to Panjdeh at the 
junction of the Kushk and Murghal Rivers. The 
Afghan general, Shams-ud-Dm, moved his soldiers 



344 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 

across the Kushk River, and was ordered to retire by 
the Russian general, Komaroff. He refused, and five 
hundred of his force were shot down in less than an 
hour by the Russian Cossacks and Turkomans. At 
the time the Amir Abdur Rahman was at Rawal 
Pindi on a visit to Lord Dufferin, and the expected 
war, for which the English Parliament had, at the 
request of Mr. Gladstone, voted an immediate grant 
of eleven millions sterling, was happily averted by 
the Amir withdrawing his claim to Panjdeh, his right 
to Zurfikar being recognised in exchange. 

For the first time in the history of British rule in 
India the native princes eagerly pressed forward in 
the supposed emergency with offers of aid in money, 
transport, and men, some even offering to maintain 
their own troops at the front if the Viceroy would but 
accept their offer to repel what was feared would be 
the commencement of a Russian invasion. 

On the 3rd of December, 1888, the Marquis of 
Lansdowne landed at Bombay, having been appointed 
to succeed the Earl of Dufferin, created Marquis of 
Dufferin and Ava for his services during his Vice- 
royalty. 

Many and varied were the problems that presented 
themselves for solution during the administration of 
Lord Lansdowne. First there were the questions in 
connection with the National Congress, or assemblage 
of representatives from all parts of India, which first 
met in 1886, and still continues annually to hold 
meetings in December of each year, to formulate and 
press on the Government measures which it deems 
essential in consequence of the newly awakened 



MANIPUR. 345 

hopes and aspirations of the more educated natives. 
There were also questions connected with local repre- 
sentation and freedom of members of the Legislative 
Council to discuss finance and financial legislation, 
and questions respecting the newly aroused, bitter, 
and often sanguinary feuds between different religious 
sections of the community in India, all of which await 
their solution in the future. 

The condition of affairs at Manipur, on the borders 
of Assam, and in Chitral, a state lying between 
Afghanistan and the North-west frontier, were of 
more immediate interest. All that is at present 
known, and it is doubtful if more ever will be 
known, of the true facts of the former is that in 
the Hill state of Manipur, having an area of 
about 4,500 square miles, the ruling chief was, 
in September, 1890, driven out from his territories 
by his own brother, the Senapati, or leader of the 
army, and another of his brothers proclaimed Regent 
in his place. The chief fled first to Mr. Grimwood, 
the Viceroy's agent at Manipur, thence to Calcutta. 
The Viceroy at once directed Mr. Quinton, Com- 
missioner of Assam, to proceed to Manipur and 
recognise the newly appointed Regent as chief of 
the state, but at the same time directions were 
given that the Senapati should be captured and 
removed. With an escort of four hundred Ghurkas 
Lieutenant-Colonel Skene left Assam and marched to 
Manipur, where he summoned the newly appointed 
Regent and the Senapati to meet him in public 
Darbar, the intention being that the Senapati should 
there be apprised of the intentions of Government 



346 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 

and publicly arrested. As the Senapati, however, did 
not deem it wise to attend the Darbar, an attempt 
was made on the 24th of March to arrest him at his 
own house. He resisted, and in turn attacked the 
Residency. Mr. Quinton, Mr. Grimwood, and Colonel 
Skene, were outnumbered, and when they went with 
a flag of truce to the Regent they were treacherously 
assassinated. 

The escort retreated from the Residency, but on 
the arrival of reinforcements order was restored. The 
Senapati and those guilty suffered the penalty of 
death, the Regent was transported for life, and a 
minor representative of the ruling family nominated 
by the British Government to the chieftainship, a 
political Resident being placed in adminstrative charge 
during the minority of the young Raja. 

Chitral, a state larger than Wales, inhabited by 
some eighty thousand wild and reckless hill-men, 
had for long preserved its independence, hid away 
as it was amid the surrounding vast mountain ranges. 
Separated from Russian territories by the state of 
Wakhan, Chitral guards the Ishkamun and Baroghil 
Passes leading across the Hindu Kush — the great 
watershed between India and Central Asia — to the 
Pamirs. 

In 1876 the Chief of Chitral sought to enter into 
friendly relations with the Maharaja of Kashmir — a 
policy in which he was encouraged by the Indian 
Government, as it was hoped that thereby effectual 
control might be ultimately gained over the northern 
passes, and to some extent a voice in the external 
affairs of Chitral itself. In 1878 a treaty was 



CHITRAL. 347 

successfully drawn up under Lord Lytton's auspices 
between the Chief of Chitral and the Maharaja of 
Kashmir. By this treaty it was agreed that an 
English agency should be established at Gilgit on 
the northern frontier. This position was to be gar- 
risoned by Kashmir troopers, for the purpose of 
observing and reporting on Russian intrigues and 
tribal movements in the scarcely known tracts lying 
between Kashmir and the Pamirs. This agency was 
withdrawn in 1881, but re-established under Lord 
Lansdowne in 1889, with instructions that the Resi- 
dent was from time to time to visit Chitral, and if 
possible open up a road thence to Peshawar. 

In August, 1892, the Mehtar, or ruler, of Chitral 
died. His second son, aged twenty-five, Afzal-ul- 
Miilk, murdered all his brothers within reach, and 
sent word to the Viceroy that he had been acknow- 
ledged chief with the " unanimous consent of his 
brothers," requesting at the same time that an 
English agent should be sent to Chitral. 

It was not long before the new chieftain was 
deposed by his uncle, Sher Afzal, who was in turn 
driven out from Chitral by the old Mehtar's eldest 
son, Nizam-ul-Mulk, who had returned from Gilgit, 
where he had won the favour of the agent, Colonel 
Durand. Sher Afzal retired to Badakshan, where 
he became a pensioner of the Amir of Afghanistan, 
and Surgeon-Major Robertson was deputed by the 
Viceroy to visit Chitral and report on the state of 
its affairs. 

While the British Government was considering the 
policy most expedient to pursue with regard to the 



34$ INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 

state the question suddenly developed fresh compli- 
cations from the fact that the new chief, Nizam-ul- 
Mulk, was, on the 1st of January, 1895, shot at a 
hunting party at the instigation of Amir-ul-Mulk, his 
half-brother. 

The Amir of Afghanistan had undertaken, by the 
Durand Agreement of November 12, 1893, not to 
interfere with Chitral, but, strange to say, when 
Umra Khan, Chief of Jandol, a neighbouring state 
lying between Chitral and Peshawar, attempted in 
the confusion to seize Chitral, he was joined, on 
February 21st, by Sher Afzal, who had somehow 
escaped from the custody of the Amir. 

Four days later the fickle tribesmen of Chitral 
joined the two insurgent chieftains, and raised the 
standard of revolt against their new chief and his 
English supporters. Surgeon-Major Robertson was 
driven into the fort, and on the 13th of February wrote 
that he was holding out with 240 men and had ample 
supplies for three months. On the 3rd of March 200 
Kashmir infantry, under Captain Campbell, advanced 
from the fort to reconnoitre the position of the enemy. 
They were driven back with a loss of twenty-three 
killed and thirty wounded. Surgeon-Captain Whit- 
church bravely won the Victoria Cross for bearing 
Captain Baird, who was mortally wounded, through 
the attacking enemy three miles back to the fort. 

Cut off from the outside world, the defenders 
gallantly held the fort from March 3rd to April 17th, 
in which time 101 of their number were wounded, 40 
fatally. The full strength of the garrison consisted 
of 99 men of the 14th Sikhs, 301 of the Kashmir 



MARCH OF COLONEL KELLY. 349 

Infantry, under the command of Surgeon-Major 
Robertson, the agent, Captains Townshend and 
Campbell, Lieutenants Gurdon and Harley, and 
Surgeon-Captain Whitchurch. 

On the 19th of March orders were given for the 
1st Division of the 1st Army Corps, 15,000 strong, 
to march from near Peshawar through the Swat and 
Dir country and attack the rebels from the south. 

On the 1st of April the army, fully equipped 
and provisioned, started under Lieutenant-General 
Sir Robert Low. On the 3rd of April the Mala- 
kand Pass, 3,500 feet high, was forced, and 12,000 
of the enemy driven from a strong position they 
tried to defend. Further on the Panjkora River 
had risen and was impassable. A bridge was built, 
and Lieutenant-Colonel Battye, after a gallant day's 
fighting, in which he succeeded in driving the tribes 
from the hills on the far side of the river, fell mortally 
wounded in the hour of victory. On the 17th of 
April the advancing force from the south defeated 
Umra Khan. In the meantime Colonel Kelly had 
marched from Gilgit, two hundred miles north-east 
of Chitral, with four officers and two hundred men 
of the Pioneers crossed over the Sandur Pass, 12,400 
feet high, through 4 \ feet of snow, and on the 
5th of April reached Lashpur, thirty of his men 
having been struck down with snow-blindness, and 
twenty-six having fallen frostbitten during the march. 
On the 9th Mastuj was occupied, its garrison relieved, 
and the force, now increased to 640 men, drove the 
enemy before them and reached Chitral by the 20th 
of April, there to find that the besieging force had 



350 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 

fled and that the garrison was released from its long 
imprisonment of forty-seven days. 

Chitral once subdued, the same question, which has 
run through all Indian politics since the time when 
Lord Lawrence formulated his policy of non-inter- 
vention with territories and chieftains lying outside 
the strict limits of British India, once again pressed 
for solution. Should the British force be withdrawn 
from Chitral, or should the position be strengthened 
and improved by making a road from Peshawar 
and placing an agent permanently at the Mehtar's 
capital ? On the one hand it was urged that an 
advanced position on the very borders of Russian 
territory, the opening-up of the country by roads 
and consequent civilisation of the savage races, 
would only prepare the way for a Russian advance 
from Bokhara towards Kashmir, Gilgit and the 
Punjab. On the other hand, it was contended that 
an English agent and English troops at Chitral 
would effectually frustrate any possible intrigues or 
sudden incursions from beyond the passes of the 
Hindu Kush. 

The question received the full attention of the most 
experienced officials in India and England. On the 
13th of June, 1895, Sir Henry Fowler, then Secretary 
of State for India under a Liberal Government, sent 
to the Viceroy a telegram directing that no European 
force or diplomatic agent should be retained at 
Chitral, that the state should be abandoned to a new 
native ruler, Shuja-ul-Mulk, and no effort made to 
open communications with it from Peshawar. This 
decision the Government of India regretted, but, 



LIMITS OF BRITISH TERRITORY, 351 

at the same time, loyally accepted. Before action 
on it took place a Conservative Government came 
into office, and on the 8th of August Lord George 
Hamilton, the new Secretary of State for India, 
reversed the policy of his predecessor and tele- 
graphed to the Viceroy that Chitral should not be 
abandoned, and that a military force should be located 
near at hand with a political agent in charge so that 
effectual control should be kept over the passes. 
Chitral thus remains the most advanced post in 
British India, guarding the passes through which 
Alexander the Great probably advanced on the first 
historic invasion of India — passes, however, through 
which it seems absolutely impossible that any ad- 
vance in modern times could ever be contemplated 
or considered feasible. 

This tendency towards expansion of British terri- 
tory in the East is inevitable, however much it may 
be regretted. To the far East over Burma towards 
the Mekong River, beyond the Indus from Chitral 
to British Baluchistan, it has spread, and in the future 
it must as certainly extend till it touches the boun- 
daries of Russian dominion. Before that time comes 
strange changes will have taken place — changes that 
must shake to their very foundations the Empires . of 
the West and decide the great question of the future : 
the contest among the nations of Europe for final 
supremacy, not only over India but also over the 
further East — a contest in which the East must in- 
evitably fall vanquished so long as physical force is 
to decide the pre-eminence of the hardy dwellers 
in Northern climes over their effete and perhaps 



352 INDIA UNDER THE CROWN. 

more degenerate brethren in the enervating regions 
of tropical lands. 

At the present moment the whole world throbs 
to its centre with eagerness to enter on the mighty 
contest — a contest which all know cannot be long 
delayed. So portentous appear to be the coming 
changes that none seems to know whether it were 
wise to hope that some solution may come speedily 
or that for a time the West may be allotted oppor- 
tunity to reconsider her position in the history of the 
world's civilisation before her irresistible material 
resources are again sent forth to bend and mould 
to her ways the sedate and placid peoples whose 
necks are already bent before their coming con- 
querors. 





XVI. 

MORAL AND MATERIAL PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH 

RULE. 



ENGLAND'S mission in India as pioneer in implant- 
ing the rudiments of Western Civilisation, nurtured 
under the dire necessity of a struggle for existence in 
which only the fittest tend to survive, has as yet but 
hardly commenced. The extent of country that has 
fallen under her sway and the varied people she there 
rules, present a problem more than sufficient to tax to 
the utmost the resources she holds at her command. 

According to the last Census Report, ably com- 
piled by the Census Commissioner, Mr. Baines, the 
rule of the British in India extends over the following 
provinces and feudatory states, the latter having a 
larger population than that of the United States, 
Haidarabad alone being equal in extent to the 
whole of England and Scotland, while Rajputana 
and Central India exceed the entire German 
Empire. 

24 353 



354 



PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 



Province, State, or Agency. 



Bengal 

Madras 

(N.-W. Provinces 
[Oudh 

Punjab 
(Bombay 
[Sind 

Central Provinces 
f Upper Burma 
\ Lower Burma 

Assam 

Berar 

A j mere 

Coorg 
(Aden 

\ Quetta, &c. 
(Andamans 



Total, British Provinces 

Haidarabad 

Rajputana ... 

Central India 

Mysore 

Baroda 

Kashmir 

States connected with Bombay 

Madras 

Central Provinces 

Bengal 

N.-W. Provinces 
Punjab 

Fort Steadman, Shan Outposts 

Total, Feudatory States 

Grand Total, India 



Area in 


Population, 


Square Miles. 


1891. 


151,543 


71,346,987 


141,189 


35,630,440 


83,286 


34,254,254 


24,217 


12,650,831 


110,667 


20,866,847 


77,275 


15,985,270 


47,789 


2,871,774 


86,501 


10,784,294 


83,473 


2,946,933 


87,957 


4,658,627 


49,004 


5,476,833 


17,718 


2,897,491 


2,711 


542,358 


1,583 


173,055 


80 


44,079 


— 


27,270 


— 


15,609 


9 6 4,993 


221,172,952 


82,698 


11,537,040 


130,268 


12,016,102 


77,808 


IO,3l8,8l2 


27,936 


4,943,604 


8,226 


2,4 I 5,396 


80,900 


2,543.952 


69,045 


8,059,298 


9,609 


3,700,622 


29,435 


2,160,511 


35,834 


3,296,379 


5,109 


792,491 


38,299 


4,263,280 


— 


2,992 


595,167 


66,050,479 


1,560,160 


287,223,431 



India not only exceeds in extent the whole of 
Europe, leaving out Russia, but its people are divided 
one from the other in race, language, and physical 
characteristics, as greatly as are the varied nationalities 
of the West. In religion they are subdivided as 
follows : — 



CENSUS RETURNS. 



355 



R.-ligion. 


Population (1891), 


Brahmanic 






207,731,727 


Animistic 






9,280,46/ 


Sikh ... ... ... . 




r 


*, 937,833 


Jain 






1,416,638 


Zoroastrian 






89,904 


Buddhist 






7,131,361 


Jew 






17,194 


Christian 






2,284,380 


Musalman 






57,321,164 


Minor forms 






185 


Unreturned 






42,578 


Total 


287,223431 



According to the census returns they are grouped 
together as speaking languages belonging to the 



following families 





Population 


Languages by Linguistic groups- 


Returning. 






'A. Aryo-Indic 




195,463,807 




B. Dravidian 






52,964,620 




C. Kolarian ... 






2,959,006 




D. Gipsy Dialects .. 






401,125 




E. Khasi 






178,637 




F. Tibeto Burman .. 






7,293,928 




G. Mon Annam 






229,342 




H. Taic, or Shan 






178,447 


Family - 


J. Maylayan 

K. Sinitic 

L. Japanese 

M. Aryo-Eranic 

N. Semitic 

O. Turanic 

P. Aryo-European .. 
Q. Basque 






4,084 
713,350 

93 
1,329,428 

55,534 

659 

. 245,745 

1 




R. Hamitic or Negro 




9,612 


Language unrecognisable 




363 


Return left blank 




19,659 


Total enumerated by Parent Tongue. 




262,047,440 


Population not enumerated by Parent Tongue 


25,175,991 




Total 


• 





287,223,431 



356 



PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 



The almost incredible ignorance of the mass of 
the people may be estimated from the following 
figures : — 



Country. 


Number able to 
read and write per 
1,000 of each Sex. 




Males. 


Females. 


United States {White) 

Ireland 

Ceylon 

United States {Coloured) 

India, 1881 

„ 1891 • 


725 

554 
269 

254 
91 - 
109 


706 

501 

29 

217 

4 
6 



To keep this vast empire in peace, and resist all 
possible danger of invasion, the army, according -to 
the returns of 1893-4, has a sanctioned establishment 
as follows : — 



British troops 

Miscellaneous officers 

( Bengal 

Native troops -1 Madras 

( Bomba}' 


••84,513 
•• 32,305 
..28,818 


73,080 
901 

145,636 
219,617 

218,786 


Total 
Corresponding total for 1892-3 . 





The native reserves amount to a total of 13,316, 
the effective strength of the volunteers being 25,908, 
with 19,294 contingents from feudatory states, or- 
ganised and trained by British officers for service in 
the field. The proportion of Europeans to natives in 
the regular army is about two to one, and about equal 



INTERNAL PEACE. 357 

in the subsidiary forces of reserves, volunteers, and 
feudatory contingents. 

Almost the whole of the effective artillery, the forts, 
and arsenals are in the possession of British troops, 
and every position of vantage is practically unassail- 
able by native troops. The defences of Delhi were 
in 1890 secured against all possibility of attack, and 
by 1 891 the railway bridge over the Jumna was pro- 
tected by fortifications. Similarly Agra, Cawnpur, 
Lucknow, Allahabad, and all chief cities where dis- 
affection is ever to be feared, have been so secured as 
to furnish safe retreat for the British colony in case 
of sudden attack. It is to be hoped that in future no 
efforts will be spared for the necessary extension of 
similar defences and construction of like harbours of 
refuge, where the military authorities, after full con- 
sideration and due consultation with the Civil autho- 
rities, deem them imperative. So long as there is 
danger of grave disorder arising from outbursts of 
fanatical zeal, race hatred, or lawless lust, which may 
at any moment occur and spread far and wide, in 
remote and at present unprotected portions of India, 
it is the first duty of the Government to see that 
their civil officers and outlying military posts are not 
exposed to any avoidable risk in carrying on their 
duties of administration. 

While the internal peace of India has been secured, 
the problem of defence against any possible attack 
from the north-west or east still occupies the earnest 
attention of the Government. 

The conquest of Sind in 1843, anc ^ the acquisition 
of the Punjab in 1849, advanced the boundaries of 



358 PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 

British India to the high mountains and table-lands 
of Khelat and Afghanistan. From the west of Kashmir 
the mountain ranges, running south for 1,200 miles to 
Karachi, the seaport town of Sind, are held to the 
northward by fierce, fanatic Pathans, to the southward 
by more tractable Baluchi's, who submit to the rule of 
their hereditary chieftains, both races together being 
able to turn out some 200,000 fighting men. From 
Peshawar, the Khaibar Pass is open towards Kabul ; 
further south the Tochi and Gumal Passes give access 
to Ghazni, while from the plains of Sind the Bolan 
Pass leads to Quetta and Chaman, thence through 
the Khojak Pass to Kandahar. 

The route from the Khaibar Pass was secured, in 
1893, by defensive works at Peshawar, by entrench- 
ments and batteries stretching j\ miles in extent 
along the river Indus at Attock, and further back 
by fortifications at Rawal Pindi, extending in a 
quadrilateral of five miles, which would take some 
10,000 men to defend. At the other passes adequate 
precautions for defence have been taken, the most 
important being those in connection with the route 
from Kandahar to Quetta on to the plain of Sind, with 
which the name of the great hero diplomatist, Sir 
Robert Sandeman, will, so long as the British Empire 
in India lasts, be ever associated. For upwards of 
400 miles north, from the sea to the Indus, the ad- 
ministration of the Sind frontiers lay in the hands of 
the Sind Government, whose duty it was to watch 
the Khan of Khelat and the territories over which he 
ruled, a tract of country larger than Great Britain. 
These lands were inhabited by Baluchi and Brahui 



DEFENCE. 359 

tribes, who held the passes and roads leading from 
India towards Kandahar, Herat, and Persia. Through 
Sir Robert Sandeman's indomitable perseverance 
and strong determination, the Khan of Khelat was 
induced, in 1876, to enter into a treaty by which 
he agreed not only to refer his disputes with his 
feudatories to the British Government, but also to 
allow British troops to occupy Quetta, a post now 
almost impregnable. 

After the Afghanistan war of 1878, Sir Robert 
Sandeman succeeded in securing the districts now 
known as British Baluchistan, included in 1887 in 
British territory. In 1890 the Zhob Valley was 
occupied, and the Gumal Pass opened up for traffic. 
Quetta has further been connected with Sibi by 
two railways, one through the Harnai Valley and 
one through the Bolan Pass leading to Chaman six 
miles beyond Quetta by a tunnel 2J miles long. 
The difficulties of constructing these railways have 
been almost insurmountable, in consequence of the 
ever-recurring landslips and floods. On the Mush- 
kaf Valley line, in the Bolan Pass, upwards of 
twenty tunnels had to be constructed in a distance 
of sixty miles ; lower down nine bridges were swept 
away in 1892; in other places the rails were carried 
away by floods and had to be relaid nine and ten 
times ; while in other parts the line has over and 
over again been covered for miles by landslips. 

While every available effort has thus been put for- 
ward to make the frontiers from Karachi to Chitral 
unassailable from the west, the north is secured by 
the mighty mountain ranges of the Himalayas, im- 



360 PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 

passable for an invading army, and possessing peaks 
such as those of Kanchajanga and Mount Everest, 
over four miles in height. 

On the south-east the conquest of Upper Burma 
has brought the British dominions in touch with those 
of the French, and the Mekong River now forms the 
boundary between these two rival powers in the East. 

To the north-east the limits between China and 
Burma were satisfactorily demarcated in 1894, the 
state of Kiang Hung, on " the left bank of the 
Mekong, being ceded to China, and the state of 
Kiang Kheng to Siam. By handing over this northern 
Shan State of Kiang Hung along the banks of the 
Mekong, to China, an intermediate zone to the south 
was left to form a buffer state between British and 
French boundaries. By the declaration of January 
15, 1896, between France and England, it was finally 
agreed that, " From the mouth of the Nam Huok 
northwards as far as the Chinese frontier, the thalweg 
of the Mekong shall form the limits of the possessions 
or spheres of influence of Great Britain and France." 
This closing together of British and French territories 
along the Mekong will entail future military ex- 
penses and possibly give rise to many complicated 
questions of international policy. At present the 
most pressing problem seems to be the necessity of 
connecting Burma with the south of China by a 
railway carried through the Kiang Hung State, so 
as to open up a new and important route to tap the 
mineral and agricultural resources of India-China and 
Yunnan. 

While India is thus almost in touch on its north- 



THE MEKONG. 



36l 



west and south-east frontiers with the advancing 
soldiers of Russia and France, and therefore com- 
pelled to make adequate defence against all possible 
risk of invasion by land, the great seaports Karachi, 




Bombay, and Calcutta have been placed in a com- 
plete state of defence against naval operations, 
leaving, for financial and other reasons, the security 
of Rangoon and minor ports a matter for serious 
though future consideration. 



362 PROGRESS UNDER BRITJSH RULE. 

Although the necessity of holding India free from 
every possible and probable internal disturbance and 
safe from external invasion is the primary duty of 
a civilised Government without which none of its 
functions, such as the moral and material advance- 
ment of the people entrusted to its charge, can be 
accomplished, yet there may be limits beyond which 
no Government, with a due regard to financial con- 
siderations, can prudently advance. Military strate- 
gists, if left unchecked by all financial considerations, 
could only find the actual realisation of their ideals 
in making the defences entrusted to their care abso- 
lutely impregnable from all possible combinations of 
attack. That it is however practically impossible to 
carry out, at the present time, many admirable and 
probably necessary schemes for defence must be 
admitted, when the financial position of India is 
recognised as demanding the most careful considers - 
tion, and even scrutiny, before further expenses are 
incurred without the very gravest necessity. 

The first note of financial alarm was sounded in 
the year 1885, when it was proposed to increase the 
army in India by 10,000 British and 20,000 native 
troops. Since then the average annual expenditure 
up to 1892-3 on special defensive works has been 
over 5,550,511 rupees, while the cost of minor military 
expeditions, including that in Upper Burma and Mani- 
pur, has exceeded 8^ millions of tens of rupees, the 
increase on army effective service alone being 12 
millions of tens of rupees more in 1892-3 than it was 
in 1882-3. 

In addition to these burdens on the financial re- 



FALL OF THE RUPEE. 363 

sources of India, the cost of civil administration has 
increased by nearly 3 millions of tens of rupees 
from 1882-3 to 1894-5. The interest on public debt 
has grown at the rate of 3 millions of tens of rupees 
annually during the last twenty years. 

Another serious item to be considered is the loss 
annually incurred from exchange, due to the fact that 
money to the amount of 16 millions sterling has to 
be remitted from India to England in order to pay 
for home charges, such as interest on debt, about 
2\ millions ; interest on railway, about 5f millions ; 
military charges and pensions, 3 J millions ; civil 
pensions, ij millions; and stores, \\ millions. The 
whole of this is paid in England in gold, and raised 
in India in silver rupees. During recent years the 
value of silver, in relation to gold, has fallen con- 
siderably ; the rupee, instead of being worth 2s., was 
valued at but a little over thirteen pence in 1894-5. 
As the rupee falls in value or purchases less gold, more 
of the silver revenue of India has to be sent yearly to 
England ; the loss in exchange, in 1894-5, amounted 
to 14,752,000 of tens of rupees. 

By Act VIII. of 1893 an effort was made to stay 
the falling value of the rupee, and if possible to 
facilitate the introduction of a gold coinage into 
India. The Indian mints were closed to the un- 
restricted coinage of silver into rupees by the public; 
gold at the same time being accepted at the Govern- 
ment treasuries at the rate of one sovereign for fifteen 
rupees, or gold received at the mint at the ratio of 
is. 4d. for the rupee. 

The revenues of India, from which these increasing 



364 PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 

expenses of the army, military defences, civil acU 
ministration, and loss by exchange have to be met, 
are raised for the greater part from that portion of 
the population least able to bear any increase of 
taxation. 

The population of British India amounted to 
221,172,952 in 1891 — an increase of 22,312,349 during 
the ten years from 1881. Two-thirds of this vast 
population live by agriculture, the land revenue 
contributing a total of 25,492,300 of tens of rupees 
out of a total revenue of 92,024,900 of tens of rupees. 
( Budget estimate for 1894-5.) This agricultural 
population is as a class poor, living so near the very 
verge of subsistence that a scarcity prolonged for a 
year gives rise to widespread distress, bringing many 
to the borders of starvation ; a second year's failure 
of rain results in a calamity such as that of 1876-8, 
when four millions of people died in the south, not- 
withstanding every effort made by the Government 
to save life. 

Nine-tenths of the population live in villages not 
having over 5,000 inhabitants, and four-fifths live in 
villages not possessing 1,000 inhabitants ; the average 
village of India contains about 363 inhabitants. In 
each village there is the hereditary moneylender, 
eager to advance money to the cultivators at rates 
of interest varying from 1 to 50 per cent, on the 
security of the land which, since the advent of British 
rule has acquired an ever-increasing value. Under 
the ancient Hindu law no moneylender could re- 
cover more interest on a loan than the amount of 
principal he had advanced ; under British rule he can 



THE MONEYLENDER. 



365 



recover to any amount, and to recover his debt sell, 
not only the tenant's crop, but take possession of the 
land under a judgment decree. In native states this 
transfer of land from a cultivator to a creditor is 
never allowed; in villages under British rule it obtains 
to so great an extent that Sir Griffith Evans declared, 
during the course of a recent debate in the Legis- 
lative Council of Calcutta, that " It is one of the 
grave political dangers of the future. . . . We are 
ousting the warrior peasantry by our laws and courts 
to put in the usurer. We shall want our army one 
day to keep him in." 

The following return from the last Census report 
shows the extent to which this transfer of land, from 
a law-abiding, industrious class to the idle and 
pampered moneylenders, has taken place under 
British laws : — 





Per-centage of 




Per-centage of 




Landholders, 




Landholders, 




&c, amongst 


State. 


&c, amongst 


Province. 


a « c 




- r 3 c 






5 3.2 

/-4 ■*"? -j-t 






£s.2 

<-\ -+-* -4-» 






otal 

gricul 

opula 






otal 

gricul 

opula 






H-3CU 






~+<<m 




Bombay 


9-24 


31*22 


i Haidarabad 


5-21 


i5'3i 


Madras 


6'54 


1777 


Baroda 


5-68 


2 - 6o 


Central Provinces 


5'56 


3674 


Bombay States 


4-29 


5-51 


Berar 


2*54 


23-21 


Central Province 






Assam 


38-02 


67.65 


States 


10-82 


13-48 


N.-W. Provinces ... 


18-28 


46-57 








Punjab 


7-96 


18-37 









That is to say, two-thirds of the usurers of Assam 
have become landholders, and nearly one-half of them 



366 PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 

in the North-western Provinces have ousted the original 
hereditary cultivators, who have taken to other occu- 
pations, or more frequently become serfs and day- 
labourers. Some effort was made, in consequence 
of the agricultural riots in Bombay, to protect the 
cultivators by the Deccan Agriculturists' Relief Acts 
of 1879 and 1 88 1, which enacted that when the land 
was mortgaged, the court, on failure of the tenant to 
repay the loan, could direct the land to be culti- 
vated for seven years for the benefit of the money- 
lender, the debtor and his family being allowed 
sufficient to support them out of the proceeds, after 
which time the land is restored to the tenant. 
Nothing short of a general law, applicable to all 
India, will adequately meet this grave danger. 

At present the land-tax is paid in silver, often 
borrowed by the cultivators, in the absence of agri- 
cultural banks, from the moneylenders at exorbitant 
rates of interest. So long as this method of collecting 
the revenue at fixed dates exists, and the people are 
not allowed the option of commuting their rents for 
a payment in grain, or prohibited by law from part- 
ing with their rights and interests in the land they 
hold, it is hopeless, if not actually fraudulent, to 
endeavour to raise a higher revenue from the smaller 
cultivators. 

The opium revenue, chiefly on opium grown on 
about half a million acres in Benares and Berar, 
fell from over 9 J millions of tens of rupees in 1884 
to under 6f millions of tens of rupees in 1894. This 
source of income, if it does not finally disappear, will, 
for a variety of causes, be liable to still further de- 



SOURCES OF REVENUE. 36/ 

crease, notwithstanding the fact that the Report of 
the Opium Commission, presented on the 16th of 
April, 1895, showed that no evil effects were to be 
anticipated from the rational use of the drug by 
Eastern people. 

While the tax on opium is chiefly paid by the 
Chinese consumer, the revenue derived from the 
Government monopoly of the sale of salt, whether 
imported from Cheshire, or made by evaporation of 
salt water in shallow tanks along the seashore, or 
collected from the salt lakes of Rajputana, or dug 
from the salt hills of the Punjab, is paid by the 
Indian consumer, who by a series of irritating laws is 
prohibited from engaging in the simple manufacture 
of an article so necessary for the health of an 
agricultural community and their cattle. The total 
revenue derived by Government from this monopoly 
amounted to 8,346,200 tens of rupees, in 1894 raised 
from a duty of 6s. 9d. per cwt, and the cost of salt 
to a family of five may be estimated at about two 
rupees annually. The excise duties bring in but 5 J 
millions of tens of rupees, and as tobacco is free 
of duty, the incidence falls at about fourpence per 
head, while in England it amounts to six times as 
much. 

It can thus be seen that there is but little hope of 
any great increase of revenue in the immediate 
future. Sir David Barbour, during the course of the 
International Bimetallic Conference in 1894, summed 
up the financial position of India as follows : " An 
Eastern country governed in accordance with ex- 
pensive Western ideas, an immense and poor popu- 



368 PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 

lation, a narrow margin of possible additional tax- 
ation, claims for additional expenditure greatly in 
excess of possible additional revenue, a constant 
tendency for expenditure to outgrow revenue, a 
system of government in India favourable to increase 
of and unfavourable to reduction of expenditure, no 
financial control by intelligent and well-informed 
public opinion, either in India or in England." 

At present the ordinary appeal in all these matters 
is to the Secretary of State for India who is aided 
by a Council of fifteen members appointed for a term 
of ten years, the members being mostly chosen on 
account of their intimate acquaintance with the affairs 
of India, where they have held high office. By the 
Act of 1858 which transferred the Government of 
India to the Crown, the Secretary of State in Council 
has control over the expenditure of the revenues of 
India. In pressing matters, where secrecy and de- 
spatch are required, such as those of foreign policy, 
the making of war, or the affairs of native states, the 
Secretary of State acts independently of his Council. 
In India the Governor-General, commonly called 
Viceroy, and his Council are appointed by the Crown 
for a term which custom has loosely fixed at five 
years. The Council consists of five members ; two 
nominated from the Civil Service, the third a mili- 
tary officer, the fourth a barrister in charge of the 
legislative department, and the fifth a member in 
charge of the finances. An additional member by 
an Act of 1 874 may be appointed for the charge of 
public work, and the Commander-in-Chief is always 
an extraordinary member. 



ADMINISTRATION. 369 

With the vote of the Viceroy a war policy can 
usually find the support of a majority in the Council 
capable of overruling any financial remonstrance or 
opposition. 

The Legislative Council consists of the above 
Executive Council, strengthened by the addition of 
from ten to sixteen members, of whom not more 
than six may be officials. 

By Lord Cross's Act of 1892, the members of the 
Legislative Council of the Governor-General, as well 
as those of the Local Governments in Madras, Bom- 
bay, Bengal, North-west Provinces, and Oudh, have 
been granted the privilege of discussing, and asking 
questions on any financial statement, but members are 
by the Act forbidden to propose any resolution, or to 
take any division in respect of any financial question. 

Madras and Bombay, including Sind, are each 
administered by a local Governor, appointed by 
the Crown, with an Executive and Legislative 
Council ; Bengal is ruled by a Governor-General 
with an Executive and Legislative Council, likewise 
the North-west Provinces, while the Punjab has no 
Legislative Council, Assam and Burma and the Central 
Provinces being governed by a Chief Commissioner. 

For internal administration and civil and criminal 
jurisdiction British India is subdivided into 250 
districts, each district, averaging in extent some 3,859 
square miles, presided over by a senior member of 
the Covenanted Civil Service and two or three junior 
Covenanted assistants. These Covenanted Civilians 
are the successors of the former writers or factors 
appointed and sent out by the East India Company. 

2 5 



370 PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE, 

By degrees, as the Company acquired territory, the 
factors assumed administrative functions, and in 
1800, Lord Wellesley founded his college at Fort 
William for their systematic training. In 1805 
the Company, not approving of Lord Wellesley's 
efforts, founded their own college at Haileybury, 
where civilians were educated for two years before 
being allowed to proceed to India. In 1853 the 
power of nominating their officers was withdrawn 
from the Company, and the appointments filled by 
candidates selected by open competition, a system 
which still continues. 

In order to extend the employment of natives in 
the higher administrative posts, usually reserved for 
Covenanted Civilians, a statute of 1870 empowered 
the authorities in India to nominate natives to these 
appointments, and by the rules drawn up in 1879, 
one-sixth of the appointments made each year were 
reserved for them. The result of the appointments, 
made in accordance with these rules, was found not 
to be so satisfactory as had been hoped. A Public 
Service Commission, appointed in 1886, therefore 
recommended that the rules of 1879 should be 
annulled and a new service of the higher native 
officials in the Executive and Judicial services con- 
stituted, to be called the Provincial Civil Service, to 
which about one-sixth of the appointments usually 
held by the Covenanted Civil Service should be open. 
Of the 824 ordinary appointments held by members 
of the Covenanted Civil Service 93 were thrown 
open in 1892-3 to selected native officers of the 
Provincial Service. 



CIVIL SERVICE EXAMINATIONS. 37 1 

On the 2nd of June, 1893, the House of Commons 
passed a resolution that " all open competitive 
examinations heretofore held in England alone for 
appointments to the Civil Services of India shall 
henceforth be held simultaneously in India and 
England, such examinations in both countries being 
identical in their nature, and all who compete being 
finally classified in one list according to merit." The 
Government of India, to whom this resolution was 
referred, pointed out to the Home Government the 
danger of lowering the present number — some 731 
— of higher European officials now employed in 
governing a populace of 217J millions of natives. 
It urged that these Covenanted Civilians " represent 
the British Government in India. In the eyes of 
the people they are the British Government. It is 
to their personal influence, their impartiality, justice, 
and efficiency, their physical and moral fitness, that 
the due administration of the Empire is entrusted. 
Upon them, and not immediately upon military force, 
our strength rests. Any weakening of their influence 
or deterioration of their efficiency would imply a 
relaxation of the restraint of Government,and a rever- 
sion pro tanto to the condition from which the country 
emerged only when it came into British possession." 

The matter was finally summed up in the follow- 
ing Memorandum forwarded by the Government of 
India to the Secretary of State on the 1st of 
November, 1893 : — 

" In the discussions in the House of Commons and 
elsewhere frequent mention has been made of the pro- 
visions of section 87 of the Statute 3 & 4 Will. IV., 



372 PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 

c. 85, and of the declaration embodied in Her Majesty 
the Queen's Proclamation of November 1, 1858. 
The first of these enacted 'that no native of the 
said territories, nor any natural-born subject of Her 
Majesty resident therein, shall, by reason only of his 
religion, place of birth, descent, colour, or any of 
them, be disabled from holding any place, office, or 
employment under the said company.' This pro- 
vision, as is evident from its language, conveys no 
pledge of employment to any class, but merely 
declares that no person shall be subject to a dis- 
ability on account of the matters stated. As 
observed by the Court of Directors, its object was 
'not to ascertain qualification, but to remove dis- 
qualification.' The same Statute (sections 103-107) 
limited the supply of ' the vacancies in the civil 
establishments in India ' to candidates nominated for 
admission to the East India Company's College at 
Haileybury ; and at that time it need hardly be said 
that under this method of ' providing for the due 
qualification of persons to be employed in the Civil 
Service of the Company,' the admission of natives of 
India to that service could, under any conceivable 
circumstances, scarcely have been contemplated. 
Her Majesty's Proclamation of 1858, while an- 
nouncing Her Royal will and pleasure that, ' so far 
as may be, her subjects, of whatever race and creed, 
be freely and impartially admitted to offices in Her 
service, the duties of which they may be qualified by 
their education, ability, and integrity duly to dis- 
charge,' similarly limited, in the words italicised, the 
admission of natives of India to such offices by the 



INDIA CIVIL SERVICE. 373 

paramount necessities of the Empire. The Statute 
of the same year (21 & 22 Vict, a 106, s. 32), 
under which appointments to the Indian Civil 
Service are still regulated, evidently contemplated 
such appointments being made according to the 
results of an examination conducted in London 
under the superintendence of the Civil Service Com- 
missioners. And it was in order to give effect to the 
Proclamation of 1858, in such manner as to counter- 
act, so far as might be, the difficulties imposed by the 
Statute of 1858 on natives of India in coming to 
London to be examined, that the Statute of 1870 
was passed into law. This Statute is restricted in 
its operation to natives of India. While other 
natural-born subjects of Her Majesty can gain 
admission to the service only by the door provided 
by the Act of 1858, natives of India need not have 
recourse to that mode of entrance, but can be 
admitted — on proof of 'their education, ability, and 
integrity' — by the procedure laid down in the Act 
of 1870. But the qualification expressed in the 
Proclamation of 1858 — 'so far as may be' — still 
holds good ; and although the Government of India 
for the last twenty years have assiduously endea- 
voured to promote the entrance into the higher 
offices of the Indian Public Service of duly qualified 
natives, the necessities of our position in the country 
continue to limit the possibilities of such admission." 

According to the last Census of 1891 there were 
but 90,169 English, Scotch, or Irish in India out of 
the population of 288J millions. In the Provincial 
Services there were 2,449 natives of India employed 



374 PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 

in higher judicial and executive work. Altogether, 
out of 114,150 appointments carrying an annual 
salary of over 100 tens of rupees, 97 per cent, were 
held by natives of India. The full details show that 
there were 2,395,162 persons connected with the 
administration; 118,135 employed in local adminis- 
tration, and 3,086,856 in village service. 

The administration of India, while yearly giving 
increased scope for the employment of natives of 
recognised ability, must be supervised by European 
officers who, by their independence from the rivalries 
ever recurring between conflicting religious bodies 
and by their freedom from race antipathies, are able 
to act impartially, and with determination in the sup- 
pression of local disorder or more serious outbreaks. 

In place of the great inland cities of old, such 
as Agra, Delhi, Allahabad, Benares, and Lucknow, 
where emperors once reigned and priests held sway, 
surrounded by all the glamour of Oriental splendour 
and sacerdotal pomp, great seaport centres of com- 
mercial activity and Western enterprise have steadily 
grown to take their part in the history of the world's 
commerce : Calcutta, with its population greater than 
that of Glasgow ; Bombay, with a population exceed- 
ing that of Leeds and Sheffield ; and Madras, possess- 
ing a population more numerous than that of Dublin. 

In 1856 there were but 300 miles of railway open 
in British India; by 1871 the three great modern 
cities of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras had been 
placed in railway communication with each other, 
since which time the land has been traversed by a 
complete system of subsidiary lines opening up to 



HAIL WAYS, ROADS, AND SANITATION. 3; 3 

commercial enterprise the most important routes. 
The total length of rail sanctioned and opened up 
by the 31st of March, 1895, was 21,072! miles, while 
there were 18,85 5 i miles ready for traffic, and it is 
certain that a great increase may be looked for in the 
immediate future, from the fact that a Parliamentary 
Committee laid down, in 1884, the requirements of 
India at no less than 60,000 miles of rail. Of 
227 millions sterling expended up to 1892 on the 
construction of these railways, the Indian Govern- 
ment provided the sum of 153 millions sterling — an 
investment which would now show a fair profit were 
it not that the earnings are in silver, and 5 per cent, 
interest was guaranteed on money raised in England 
for the construction of the earlier lines. 

At the same time roads well constructed, bridged, 
and metalled along their entire course have replaced 
the few tracks, known as trunk roads, constructed 
under native rule. The chief towns have also been 
drained, placed in a sanitary condition, and as often 
as possible provided with an abundant supply of 
pure drinking water brought from storage areas by 
means of engineering works which rival, in many 
cases, anything of a similar character possessed by 
cities of the West. Thus Bombay is now supplied 
with water from the Tansa Reservoir, the construc- 
tion of which commenced in 1886 and was finished 
in 1892 at a cost of £ 1,500,000. In order to carry 
out this scheme an artificial lake, from six to seven 
square miles in area, was formed in the hills about 
fifty-five miles north-west of Bombay, by construct- 
ing a dam almost two miles long across a natural 



37^ PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 

valley where the reservoir was formed. The water 
was conveyed through masonry conduits, over bridges, 
and through four miles of tunnels to Bombay in quan- 
tities sufficient to supply the town with upwards of 
20,000,000 gallons daily. 

Equally important are the great engineering works 
that have been carried out for distributing the surplus 
water of rivers and reservoirs to such tracts as are 
suitable for artificial irrigation, in order that the food 
supply of the country may be increased, and practical 
immunity afforded against famine. Over 13,000,000 
acres of land now receive irrigation from artificial 
sources of supply, the water being distributed by 
over 16,000 miles of main and branch canals and 
24,000 miles of minor channels, of which 16,000 are 
navigable, upwards of 32 millions sterling having been 
expended by the Government on these works alone. 

The most remarkable project undertaken by 
Government for the purpose of irrigating an insuffi- 
ciently supplied area, is that known as the Periyar 
Project in South India, only recently completed. 
The Periyar River had from of old carried off the 
surplus rainfall from the western ghats of Travan- 
core to- the sea near Cochin. The clouds borne in 
from the sea pour down their rain on these western 
barriers to the extent of 100 inches of rain yearly, the 
eastern side receiving but a fitful supply carried off 
by the slow-flowing Vaiga River through the rich 
lands of Madura and Ramnad, towards the east 
coast. The bold idea was conceived of diverting 
the excess flood of the Periyar River from its usual 
Course to the west, and leading it by a tunnel 



THE PERIYAR PROJECT. 2>77 

through the mountains into the Vaiga River, so that 
the lowland plains of Madura and Ramnad might 
receive the benefit of the copious supply of rain 
falling on the Travancore Mountains. 

A dam, 155 feet high, 1,200 feet long, and 166 
feet wide at its base, was constructed across the 
upper valley of the Periyar River. An artificial 
lake was thereby formed in the western mountains 
capable of retaining over 13,000 millions of cubic 
feet of surplus water. The water of the lake was 
then carried in a deep channel for 5,400 feet north- 
ward towards a tunnel, pierced in the mountains, ij 
miles long, 12 feet wide, through which it was led 
towards the Vaiga River to flow east and be dis- 
tributed by minor works over 1 50,000 acres of land 
in Madura and Ramnad. 

Concurrently with the rapid increase of railways, 
roads, and navigable canals, the mineral resources of 
the country are being rapidly developed. 

The first coal mine, worked under British methods, 
was opened at Raniganj in 1820. Since then mines 
have been worked in Sind, the North-west Provinces, 
Oudh, Rajputana, Mysore, and Kashmir. In 1880 
the total output from Bengal and the Central Pro- 
vinces, then the only sources of supply, was 1,019,793 
tons. In 1894 the output reached 2,774,093 tons, 
from nine well-recognised centres of supply. During 
the past four years the import of coal into India, where 
it is sent at merely ballast rates, fell from 656,867 
tons to 591,007 tons, and it appears certain that 
before long India will be able to supply sufficient coal 
not only for her own wants, but even for exportation. 



378 



PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 



The supply of petroleum, especially from Burma 
and Assam, and in a minor degree from the Punjab 
and Baluchistan, is increasing, as may be seen from 
the following return : — 





Produced in 




1888. 








1891. 


1892. 


1893. 


Burma 

Baluchistan ... 

Punjab 

Assam 


Gallons. 

2,794,000 
34,000 

2,000 


Gallons. 

5,793,000 

138,000 

2,000 

23,000 


Gallons. 
8,698,000 

3,000 

2,000 
22,000 


Gallons. 
10,276,000 

2,000 
82,000 


Total 


2,830,000 


6,136,000 


8,725,000 


10,360,000 



The gold mines of India also yield satisfactory and 
promising returns, the output from the eight principal 
mines of Mysore being as follows : — 





1888. 


1892. 


1893. 


1894. 




Quantity of gold ex- 
tracted 

Approximate value of 
gold extracted 


Ounces. 
35,034 

Rx. 
193,059 


Ounces. 
163,188 

Rx. 

980,000 


Ounces. 
207,135 

Rx. 

1,449,000 


Ounces. 
209,714 

Rx. 
1,540,000 



Although iron is smelted as a local industry in 
many parts of India, and the ore is found in great 
richness in many places, it is only now worked after 
European methods at Barrackpur with any degree 
of commercial success. 

The modern development of India as a factor in 
the commercial history of the world may be said to 
date from the year 1822, when the idea of trading 



THE SUEZ CANAL. 



379 



from London to the East by means of steam navi- 
gation was first proposed, although it was not until 
the 1 6th of August, 1825, that the first steamer, the 




Enterprise, of 479 tons register, reached Calcutta, 
after a long journey of 106 days. 

In 1840 Ferdinand de Lesseps conceived the 



380 PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE: 

idea of carrying out the project of joining the Red 
Sea to the Mediterranean by a canal 100 miles long 
from Suez to Port Said, so as to once more bring 
the commerce of the East to its ancient route and 
restore prosperity to the cities of the Mediterranean 
ports. The opposition of England on political grounds 
to the construction of the canal forced French and 
other foreign capitalists to raise the requisite sum 
for the carrying out of the project. By the 17th of 
November, 1869, the canal was opened for naviga- 
tion, ,£20,000,000 sterling having been spent on its 
construction. On the 25th of November, 1875, the 
English Government purchased shares to the extent 
of .£4,000,000 in the Suez Canal, where the interests of 
the English had become so predominant that out of 
3,425 ships passing in 1890, 70 per cent, were British. 

The growth in trade that has ensued, between the 
United Kingdom and India, can be estimated from 
the fact that when the exclusive monopoly of the 
Company was drawing to a close in 18 14 the total 
trade was but ;£ 1,870,690, while in 1894, °f 
£"215,824,333 sterling of British products exported 
abroad, India was a customer for goods to the 
value of £29,300,069. 

Cotton and cotton manufactures form the most 
important items of Indian trade amounting to one- 
fourth of the whole. The cheap production of cotton 
goods in India roused the animosity of English 
manufacturers as early as the year 1700, when they 
succeeded in getting an Act of Parliament passed 
to prevent these goods coming into England to 
compete with home products. The introduction of 



THE COTTON DUTIES. 38 1 

new processes of especially the use of steam power, 
gave to England an easy supremacy in the manu- 
facture of textile goods over the laborious process 
of the hand looms of the East, Lancashire growing 
thereby in wealth and property, the village industry 
in India gradually declining. 

In the year 185 1 the first cotton mill was started 
in Bombay, and in 1859 the Finance Minister, James 
Wilson, raised the import duty on cotton yarns from 
5 to 10 per cent. Mr. Samuel Laing reduced the 
import duty again to 5 per cent., a rate which Lord 
Northbrook refused to lower. Under the rule of 
Lord Lytton the finer cotton goods — those made 
of yarn lighter than thirties — were exempted from 
duty on importation into India — a policy of so-called 
free trade carried further by. Lord Ripon, who 
abolished the import duty. Notwithstanding this 
the Indian mills succeeded in competing success- 
fully in the coarser class of goods with those of 
Lancashire. In consequence of the pressing financial 
embarrassment of India, the import duty on cotton 
goods was reimposed towards the close of 1894, and 
an excise duty levied on all cotton yarns produced 
in India of counts over twenty, in which it was 
hoped the Lancashire mills would retain an easy 
monopoly, so that the trade in the coarser class of 
goods might be left in the hands of native mill- 
owners. The recent legislation of 1896 has reduced 
this import duty to 3 J per cent, ad valorem on 
piece goods and cotton manufactures, and imposed 
a duty of 3J per cent, on woven goods of all counts 
manufactured by Indian mills, 



382 



PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 



For long it was considered that the Indian mills 
could not produce yarns of a higher count than 
twenty-fours, but of late it has become evident that 
India can produce goods of as fine a quality as those 
imported from abroad if the manufacture proves a 
financial success. There are now over 140 cotton 
mills in India which employ some 1 30,000 labourers. 
These mills are gradually being brought under the 
regulations of the English Factory Act, with the 
intention of reducing the time of labour to eleven 
hours, with one hour's rest in the middle of the 
day, and of restricting the hours of employment of 
women. 

The principal articles of merchandise imported 
into India and the growth of the trade during 
the course of five years is as follows : — 



1889-90. 



Cotton goods and yarn 

Metals, including hardware and cutlery 

Oils, chiefly mineral 

Silk, raw and manufactured 

Sugar 

Machinery and millwork 

Woollen goods 

Chemicals, drugs,dyes, and medicines,&c 

Provisions ... 

Apparel 

Liquors 

Railway material ... 

Coal...' 

Spices 

Salt 

Glass and glassware 

Paper and pasteboard 
Umbrellas 



Rx. 

29,873,928 
6,802,177 
2,645,213 

2,845,159 
2,200,049 

2,435,385 
1,455,235 
1,280,556 

1,50,505 
1,296,394 

1,465,144 
1,821,337 
1,308,590 

852,350 
894,532 
647,127 

407,479 
314,106 



1893-4. 



Rx. 

32,377,469 
7,580,282 
3,570,188 
3,188,053 
2,824,190 
2,518,038 
1,892,042 
1,837,570 
1,782,868 
1,578,049 
1,458,204 
1,242,977 
972,588 

873,655 
791,067 
788,480 
494,208 
480,933 



TMPORTS AND EXPORTS. 



383 



The exports of Indian merchandise are shown in 
the next list : — 



1. Grain and pulse ... 

2. Cotton, raw 

3. Seeds 

4. Opium 

5. Cotton yarns and cloth ... 

6. Jute, raw 

7. Tea 

8. Hides and skins 

9. Indigo 

10. Jute manufactures 

11. Coffee 

12. Wool, raw 

13. Dyes (other than indigo) 

14. Lac 

15. Provisions 

16. Wood and timber 

17. Silk, raw ... 

18. Oils, including paraffin wax 

19. Sugar 



1889-90. 



16,528,225 
18,668,404 
10,627,553 
10,115,936 

6,753,743 
8,639,861 

5,277,650 
4,524,261 
3,863,084 
2,791,242 
1,489,872 

1,085,637 
683,288 

488,513 
624,425 
870,119 
639,818 
555,007 
917,179 



1893-94. 



16,325,142 
13,296,670 

i6,753,25i 
8,019,428 

6,242,558 
8,524,130 

6,585,835 
5,801,328 
4,182,128 

3,441,787 
2,002,171 
1,079,772 
841,073 
960,330 
873,877 
589,764 
698,099 

535,88i 
892,741 



The following, showing the imports of tea from 
India, China, and Ceylon, to England points out 
clearly the rapid growth of the demand for India and 
Ceylon tea and the corresponding decrease in the 
demand for the more delicate China teas. The 
quantities are given in lbs. ooo's omitted. 





From India. 


From Ceylon. 








1884 


63,208 


2,211 


143,771 


1885 


64,382 


4,242 


139,673 


1886 


73,467 


7,144 


145,308 


1887 


84,645 


13,062 


119,799 


1888 


89,874 


22,509 


105,735 


1889 


95,384 


32,673 


88,558 


1890 


101,771 


42,491 


73,743 


1891 


109,638 


61,900 


62,284 


1892 


111,711 


66,042 


57,o5i 


1893 


H5,023 


72,631 


56,209 



384 PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 

While from the earliest days of the Company the 
development of commerce and increase in the wealth 
of the country has received the first attention of 
its Western rulers the intellectual and moral welfare 
of the people have also claimed the earnest attention 
of the State. 

The first step taken under the rule of the Company 
towards connecting the State with the education of 
the people was, in 1781, when Warren Hastings 
founded a Muhammadan College at Calcutta, an 
enlightened policy carried on by Mr. Jonathan 
Duncan who established a college at Benares, in 
1 79 1, for the encouragement of Sanskrit learning 
among the Hindus. 

The Rev. H. B. Hyde, in one of a learned and 
painstaking series of articles to the Indian Church 
Quarterly Review has recently pointed out that in 
1788 Mr. John Owen, Chaplain to the Bengal Presi- 
dency, addressed a memorial, signed by all the 
chaplains then stationed at Calcutta, to the Govern- 
ment, urging that schools should be established, " in 
proper situations for the purpose of teaching our 
language to the natives of these provinces," so that 
" the beneficence of Great Britain would acquire a 
more glorious Empire over a benighted people than 
conquest has ever yet bestowed." This very curious 
and interesting petition, which, as Mr. Hyde remarks, 
has been overlooked by all historians, does not appear 
to have received any attention from Government. 

From the year 1799 the renowned Baptist mission- 
aries Marshman and Ward, who had settled at a 
small Danish settlement at Serampur, set up a print 



EDUCATION. 385 

ing press and commenced to print and distribute 
vernacular literature, and by 181 5 they had estab- 
lished twenty schools in the vicinity of Calcutta, with 
upwards of 800 native children. 

For the first time, either at home or abroad, the 
principle that the instruction of the people was an 
essential part of the duties of the State was clearly 
enunciated by the Charter Act of 181 3. By this Act 
it was declared that " it shall be lawful for the 
Governor-General in Council to direct that out of any 
surplus which may remain of the rents, revenues, and 
profits arising from the said territorial acquisitions, 
after defraying the expenses of the military, civil, and 
commercial establishments, and paying the interest 
of the debt, ... a sum not less than one lac of rupees 
in each year shall be set apart and applied to the 
revival and improvement of literature, and the 
encouragement of the learned natives of India, and 
for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of 
the sciences among the inhabitants of the British 
territories in India." The lakh of rupees herein re- 
ferred to was transferred to a General Committee 
of Public Instruction, appointed by the Bengal 
Government in 1823, for the purpose of devising 
measures " with a view to the better instruction of 
the people, to the introduction among them of useful 
knowledge, and to the improvement of their moral 
character." 

The more advanced natives of India were naturally 
eager that these State Funds should be employed 
in encouraging the study of English instead ol 
Eastern learning. The Committee of Public Instruc- 

26 



386 PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 

tion, however, preferred to found Oriental colleges at 
Agra and Delhi, thereby drawing down on them- 
selves, in 1824, the retort of the Court of Directors 
that " in professing to establish seminaries for the 
purpose of teaching mere Hindu, or mere Muham- 
madan literature, you bound yourselves to teach a 
great deal of what was frivolous, not a little of what 
was purely mischievous, and a small remainder, 
indeed, in which utility was not in any way con- 
cerned." The object of the Directors in thus urging 
the necessity of an English education was to raise 
a class of natives fitted for employment in the civil 
administration, so that gradually English would be- 
come the language in which public business might 
be transacted — a policy sedulously supported by the 
educated class of natives, and, as a rule, reprobated 
by the Indian officials. 

When the renewal of the Company's Charter was 
proposed to the House of Commons in 1833 by Mr. 
Charles Grant, President of the Board of Control, it 
was laid down that the duty of the Company was the 
" extending the commerce of this country, and of 
securing the good government, and promoting the reli- 
gious and moral improvement of the people of India." 

Lord W. Bentinck, acting under the influence of 
Lord Macaulay, announced on the 7th of March that 
he was " of opinion that the great object of the 
British Government ought to be the promotion of 
European literature and science amongst the natives 
of India, and that all the funds appropriated for the 
purpose of education should be best employed on 
English education alone," 



STRICT NEUTRALITY 387 

A new difficulty immediately arose. It was con- 
tended that by the favour shown by the Government 
towards the education of the natives in English 
learning and modes of thought, attempts were being 
made to undermine the native religions and gradually 
convert the people to Christianity. The point was 
plainly expressed by the Rev. Alexander Duff who, 
on examination on the subject before the House of 
Commons in 1835, said, "We cannot but lament that 
no provision whatever has been made for substituting 
the only true religion — Christianity — in place of the 
false religion which our literature and science will 
inevitably demolish." 

These doubts and hopes were put an end to by 
Lord William Bentinck who, as quoted by the learned 
Syed Mahmood in his recent valuable "History of 
English Education in India, " declared that " the funda- 
mental principle of British rule, the compact to which 
the Government stands solemnly pledged is strict 
neutrality. To this important maxim policy, as well 
as good faith, have enjoined upon us the most scrupu- 
lous observance. The same maxim is peculiarly 
applicable to general education. In all schools and 
colleges supported by Government this principle can- 
not be too strongly enforced, all interference and 
injudicious tampering with the religious belief of the 
students, all mingling direct or indirect teaching of 
Christianity with the system of instruction, ought to 
be positively forbidden." 

The despatch of Sir Charles Wood in 1854 laid 
down the principle that English was to be a medium 
of instruction only in the higher branches of education, 



388 



PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 



and that the vernacular was to be employed in the 
lower grades of schools Under the terms of the 
same despatch universities were to be established for 
the Presidency chief towns, after the model of the 
University of London for examining pupils and 
granting degrees in arts, law, medicine, and civil 
engineering ; those of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay 
in 1857, of the Punjab at Lahore in 1882, and of 
the North-western Provinces at Allahabad in 1887. 

According to the Report of an Education Com- 
mission of 1882, presided over by Sir William Wilson 
Hunter, it was decided that Government should 
gradually withdraw from all direct work in connec- 
tion with secondary education, and leave such schools 
to be supported by private efforts supplemented by 
grants in aid. The number of colleges teaching for 
universities and schools, and their progress during 
ten years since that date is shown by the following 
statement : — 





1881-82. 


1891-92. 




No. 


Pupils. 


Xo. 


Pupils. 


(Arts 
University { Prof ^0^ Z 

Secondary 

Primary 

Normal... 
Technical 


86 
24 
4,432 
90,700 

135 
189 


8,127 

2,411 

418,412 

2,537,502 

4,949 
8,503 


IO4 

37 

4,872 

97,109 

152 

402 


12,985 

3,292 

473,294 

2,837,607 

5,146 
16,586 


Total 


95,566 


2,979,904 


102,676 


3,348,910 



The following list gives the increase during five 



ENGLAND S PRIME FUNCTION. 



389 



years of what may be called the higher educated 
natives of India : — 



University. 


Matriculation. 


Intermediate 
Examination. 


Bachelor 

of Arts. 


Master 

of Arts. 




Candidates. 


Passed. 


Passed. 


Passed. 


Passed. 


Calcutta 

Madras ... 
Bombay ... 
Allahabad 
Lahore 


27,612 

36,467 

15,352 

6,718 

4,602 


11,022 

9,457 
4,143 
2,909 

1,859 


3,810 

4,236 

1,740 

8lO 

472 


1,592 

1,211 

492 

355 
153 


266 
21 
18 

58 

9 


Total ... 
Annual Average 


90,751 
18,150 


29,390 
5,878 


II,o68 
2,213 


3 1803 
761 


372 
54 



The full effects of these efforts for the intellectual 
improvement of the people of India must be looked 
for in the future. Sir Alfred Lyall has in his 
" Asiatic Studies," pointed out that " England's prime 
function in India is at present this : to superintend 
the tranquil elevation of the whole moral and intel- 
lectual standard." The ideals to be aimed towards 
and the results to be attained by England in thus 
carrying out her great mission in the history of the 
world's progress, have, with philosophic calm and 
poetic insight, been traced out by Sir Raymond West 
in the course of an Address to the Ninth Oriental 
Congress of 1892 in the following words : — 

" There is no great need for a large multiplication 
of secondary schools and of colleges affiliated to the 
Universities, but there is need for access to them 
being made easy to ability, and great need for their 
teaching being raised and widened, if those who pass 



39P 



PROGRESS UNDER BRITISH RULE. 



through them and become the intellectual leaders of 
India are to be equal to their high calling, and are to 
take a part honourable to themselves and their nation 
in the creation of an imperial spirit which shall super- 
sede all ideas of severance, and further that fusion of 
the philosophies of the East and West to which we 
may now look most hopefully for the moral and 
intellectual advance of mankind." 





INDEX. 



Abdur Rahman Khan, Amir, 326, 

34i 

Abercromby, General, 154 
Aboriginal inhabitants, 49 
Adi Granth, 245 
Administration, 369 
Afghanistan, 219, 227, 231, 326 
Agra, capture of, 176 
Agriculturists' Relief Act, 366 
Ahmadabad, 142 
Ahmadnagar, 175 
Ahmad Shah Durani, 123 
Aix la Chapelle, Treaty of, 75 
Akbar, Emperor, 59 
Alambagh, 301 
Alexander the Great, invasion of 

India, 4 
Aligarh, fort of, taken, 176 
Aliwal, battle of, 252 
Allahabad, 113, 124, 126, 287 
Allard, General, 247 
Ambala, mutiny at, 278 ; troops 

assembled at, 285 
Ambela campaign, 319 
Amboyna, massacre of, 38 
America, 134 

Aminchand (Omithund), 98 
Amherst, Lord, 201-4 ! war with 

Burma, 201 
Amritsar, 245 
Anderson, Lieutenant, 255 
Anson. General, at Ambala, 285 



Anwar-ud-din, 70 

Arakan ceded, 203 

Arcot Fort, capture and defence 

of, 83, 85 
Argaon, 176 
Army, 275, 315, 356, 362 
Arnold at Charbagh Bridge, 304 
Arrah, defence of, 288, 289 
Arras, battle of, 141 
Aryan languages, 52 ; early 

home, 52 
Asaf-ud Daula, 131, 139 
Asoka, 7 
Assam, 203 
Assaye, 175 

Astronomy, Indian and Greek, 7 
Auckland, Lord, 216-19 
Aurangzib, 62, 63 
Avitabile, General, 247 
Ayub Khan, 341 



B 



Babar, 48 

Badliki Sarai, battle of, 286 

Bahadur Shah, Emperor, 283 ; 
death, 303 

Bailey Guard, 305 

Baillie, Colonel, 145 

Baines, Mr., Census Commis- 
sioner, 353 

Baird, General, 145, 167 

Baj-Baj, capture of, 94 



391 



392 



INDEX. 



Baji Rao, 172, 192 

Baker, Sir Robert, 125 

Baksar, battle of, no 

Baluchistan, 359 

Baptist missionaries, 384 

Barbour, Sir David, 367 

Barlow, Sir George, 181 

Barnard, General, 285 

Baroda, Gaekwar of, 333 

Barodia, capture of, 311 

Barrackpur, mutiny at, 277 

Barrow, Captain, his volunteer 
cavalry, 296, 297 

Barwell, Richard, 130 

Bashiratganj, battle of, 299 

Bassein, 140 ; treaty of, 172 

Begams of Oudh, 139 

Benares, 131, 137, 138, 289 

Bentinck, Lord William, 205-15 ; 
abolition of widow-burning, 
206 ; suppression of Thags, 
211 

Berhampur, mutiny at, 277 

Berlin, Peace of, 336 

Bernier, Francois, 63 

Bhartpur fortress, siege of, 180 ; 
capture of, 204 

Bhils, 179 

Bhonsla of Nagpur, 123, 141, 
177, 196 

Bhutan war, 319, 320 

Biderra, battle of, 104 

Bijapur, 63 

Bird, Robert Mertins, land 
settlement, 206 

Bithur, Nana Sahib, defeated at, 
299 

Black Hole of Calcutta, 92 

Bomba}' leased to Company by 
Charles II., 40 ; cotton crisis, 
324 ; water supply of, 375 

Bore Ghat, 143 

Boughton, Gabriel, of the Hope- 
well, 39 

Breda, Treaty of, 44 

Boyle, Vicars, at Arrah, 288 

Braithwaite, Colonel, 146 

Brasyer, Colonel, at Allahabad, 
290 

Browne, General Sir Samuel, 337 

Bruce, Captain, 142 



Brydon, Dr., 233 
Burgess, Corporal, 302 
Burke, 150 

Burma, Upper, annexed, 342 
Burnes, Alexander, 218, 226 
Burrows, General, 341 
Bussy, 76, 103, 106, 147 
Busteed's " Echoes from Old 

Calcutta," 93 
Battye, Lieutenant - Colonel, 

death of, 349 



Camac, Colonel, 141 
Campbell, Sir Colin, 305 ; at 
Cawnpur, 307 ; Lord Clyde, 

3ii 
Canning, Lord, 274-317 
Cape of Good Hope discovered, 

12 
Carmichael, Sergeant, 302 
Caron, conquests, recall, and 

death, 42 
Cartridges, greasing of, 276 
Cavagnari, Sir Louis, 336-8 
Cawnpur, sepoys mutiny, 280 ; 

defence of, 290 ; memorial 

well at, 292 
Census report, 353 
Chait Singh, 131, 137, 138 
Chaman, 359 
Chamberlain, Sir Neville, 319, 

336 
Chanar, 138 
Chanda Sahib, 69 
Chandranagar, 97, 144 
Chapatis, 276 

Charbagh Bridge, 301, 304 
Charter of Company, 198 
Chauth, 177 

Chilianwala, battle of, 257 
China, 360 
Chitral, 346-51 
Christianity, 199, 273, 384-9 
Civil Service, 369 
Clavering, 130, 134 
Clive, 78-118 ; defence of Arcot, 

84 ; surprised at Kaveripak, 85 ; 

at Samiaveram, 87 ; capture 

of Calcutta, 94 ; Plassey, 99 ; 



INDEX. 



393 



returns to England, 107 ; at 
Bengal, in ; his acquisitions 
and policy, 112 ; army and 
Civil Service reforms, 113 ; 
death, 118 

Coal, 377 

Cockburn, Colonel, 141 

Columbus discovers America, 12 

Commerce, ancient and mediae- 
val, 1-12 

Commons, House of, resolution 
of 1893, 371 

Company, finance of, 205 ; ex- 
clusive right of trading to 
China abolished, 214. See 
Finance 

Competitive examination, 371 

Congress, National, 344 

Connolly, 223 

Constantinople founded, 8 ; sack 
of, 11 

Coote, Eyre, 99, 106, 142, 146 

Conversion of debt, 185 

Coorg, 165, 262 

Cornwallis, Lord, 151-60; Mysore 
war, 152 

Cotton, 324, 342, 380, 381 

Cotton, Sir Willoughby, 219 

Council, legislative, 369 ; vice- 
roy's, 368 

Court, Colonel, 24.7 

Cross, Lord, Act of 1892, 369 

Cuttack ceded, 177 

Currie, Sir Frederick, 255 



D 



Dalhousie, Lord, 255 ; second 
Sikh war, 257 ; annexations, 
262 ; Oudh, 264 ; doctrine of 
lapse, 265 ; Nana Sahib, 267 ; 
Railway minute, 268 ; on 
mutiny, 274 

Dangers from moneylenders, 

365 
De Boigne, 173 
Debt, Public, 363 
Deccan Relief Act, 366 
Declaration of Independence, 

134 
Defence of chief cities, 357 



Delafosse, 292 

Delhi, capture of, 176 ; mutiny 
at, 283 ; siege of, 286 ; capture, 
302, 303 

Denison, Sir William, 318 

Deogaon, Treaty of, 176 

Dhulip Singh, 249, 254, 258 

Dilkusha, capture of, 308 

Diodorus and ancient India, 2 

Districts, administrative, 369 

Diwangiri, 320 

Dost Muhammad Khan receives 
Russian envoy, 218 ; war with, 
219 ; flight, 222 ; surrender, 
225 ; restored as Amir, 237, 
326 

Drake, Sir Francis, captures the 
San Filippe, 24 

Drama, Indian and classical, 7 

Dravidians, 51 

Duff, Rev. Alexander, 387 

Dufferin, Lord, 342 

Dunbar, Captain, defeat near 
Arrah, 289 

Dupleix, 70 ; holds Madras, 71 ; 
his policy, 75-7 ; his recall 
and death, 89 

Durand, Lieutenant, 220 ; agree- 
ment, 348 

Dutch commerce, 40 ; sea fights, 
41 ; defeat at Biderra, 104 



E 



Eden, Ashley, 319 

Education, 268, 342, 356, 384-9 

Edwardes, H., 301 ; siege of 

Multan, 256 
Egerton, Colonel, 141, 142 
Elephanta, 143 
Elgin, Lord, 287, 318 
Ellenborough, Lord, 235-9 
Ellis, Governor of Patna, 109 
Elphinstone, Mountstuart, 194 
English to be official language, 

215 

Evans, Sir Griffith, 365 
Exchange, 363 

Exports and imports, 382, 383 
Eyre, Major Vincent, relieves 
Arrah, 289 



394 



INDEX. 



F 

Famine in 1770, 117 ; in Orissa, 
321 ; in Lower Bengal, 333 ; 
in South India, 334 ; effects 
of, 364 

Fatehpur, battle of, 297 

Finance, profits of early voyages, 
31, 32, 36, 37 ; of Company in 
1693, 47 ; difficulties of Warren 
Hastings, 122 ; of Company in 
1773, 116, 117, 134 ; prosperity 
under Lord Minto, 185 ; in 
1823, 199 ; of Company, 205 ; 
after Mutiny, 316 ; under Lord 
Mayo, 329 ; difficulties, 362 

Firozshah, battle of, 250 

Fitch, Ralph, visits India, 22 ; 
his travels, 23 ; his account of 
widow-burning, 23 

Fitzgerald, Captain, 197 

Fletcher, Sir Robert, 115 

Flint, Lieutenant, 145 

Forde,Colonel,capturesNorlhern 
Circars, 104 ; defeats Dutch, 
104 

Fort St. David, 73, 105 

Fowler, Sir Henry, 350 

France, and Company, 41 

Francis, Philip, 130, 132, 133, 

135 

Frazer, General, death of, 180 

French in India, 68-76 ; sur- 
render to Lawrence, 88 ; final 
losses, 105 ; in Tongking, 360 

Frere, Sir Bartle, 324 

Fryer, Dr., 66 

Fullerton, Colonel, 148 

G 

Gaekwar, 123, 143 
Gandamak, Treaty of, 337 
Gangadhar Sastri, death of, 193 
Gardner, Colonel, 247 
Garhakota, capture of, 311 
Garvock, General, 319 
Gawilgarh, capture of, 176 
Genoa, struggle for commercial 

supremacy, 11 
Ghazni, capture of, 220 
Ghurkas, 188 ; war, 189, 190 



Gilbert, General, 257, 258 
Gillespie, Colonel, at Vellore 

183 ; in Ghurka war, 189 
Gladstone, Mr., 325, 344 
Goddard, Colonel, 142 
Godeheu succeeds Dupleix, 89 
Gohad, Rana of, 143 
Golconda, southern kingdom of, 

63 
Gold coinage under Act VIII. 

of 1893, 363 
Gold-mines, 378 
Golden Firman, 39 
Gough, Lord, 250 ; at Chilian- 

wala, 257 ; at Ramnagar, 257 ; 

at Gujrat, 258 
Govind Singh, tenth Sikh Guru, 

246 
Grant, Lieutenant Alexander, 

175 

Grant, Charles, 386 

Greathed, Colonel, 307 

Greek influence on Indian art, 

literature, and science, 7 
Greeks in India, 4 
Griffin, Sir Lepel, 341 
Grimwood, Mr., at Manipur, 345 
Gujarat, 142 
Gujrat, battle of, 258 
Gwalior, capture of, 142, 314 

H 

Hafiz Rahmat Khan, 125, 127 

Haidar, Ali, 124, 144 

Haidarabad, subsidiary force, 
164 

Hamilton, Lord George, 351 

Hamilton, Lieutenant, 337 

Harcourt, Colonel, 176 

Hardinge, Sir Henry, 249 

Hardy, Lieutenant, 339 

Harris, General, march on Ser- 
ingapatam, 165 

Hastings, Warren, arrival in 
India, 120 ; member of council, 
Madras, 121 ; Rohilla war, 
125-7 ! Nanda Kumar, 132 ; 
Chait Singh, 137 ; impeach- 
ment, 137 ; Maratha war, 141 ; 
Haidar Ah, 145 ; leaves India, 
149 ; character, 150 



INDEX. 



395 



Hastings, Marquess, 186-200 ; 
Ghurka war, 188 ; Pindar 1 
war, 191 ; Maratha war, 196 

Havelock, Lieutenant, wins Vic- 
toria Cross, 298 ; at Charbagh 
Bridge, 304 

Havelock, Henry, 235 ; sent to 
relieve Lucknow, 294 ; battle 
of Fatehpur, 297 ; battle of 
Pandu Nadi, 297 ; of Maha- 
rajpur, 297 ; battle at Unao 
and Bashiratganj, 299 ; relieved 
by Outram, 299 ; at Lucknow, 
301 ; death, 309 

Hawthorne, Bugler, 302 

Hearsey, Colonel, 277, 278 

Henry the Navigator, 12 

Herat, siege of, 218 

Hewitt, General, at Meerut, 280 

Hodson, captures Emperor and 
slays the three Princes, 303 

Holkar, 123 ; Jeswant Rao, 177 ; 
defeats Monson, 178 

Hoi well, 91 ; story of Black 
Hole of Calcutta, 92 

Home, Lieutenant, 302 

Hope, Adrian, 308, 310 

Hugel, Baron, 240, 248 

Hughes, Admiral, 147 

Hugh, factory at, 40 

Hunter, Sir W. Wilson, and 
Education Commission, 388 

Hyde, Rev. H. B., 384 

I 

Impey, Sir Elijah, 130 
Import duties, 342 
Imports and exports, 382-3 
Income-tax, 316 
India Bill of Pitt, 151 
Indore, 311 

Inglis, Colonel, defends Luck- 
now, 294 
Iron, 378 
Irrigation department, 323 



J 



Jagannath, 176 
Jahangir, 59 



Jalalabad, defence of, 231, 234, 

235 
Java, capture of, 184 ■ 
Jenkins, William, 337 
Jhansi Rani, 267, 311, 314 
Jind, Raja, 301 

K 

Kaisarbagh, 304 

Kandahar, defence of, 234 ; 

evacuated, 342 
Karnatik, 69, 169 
Kashmir, Gate, of Delhi, 302 
Kaufman, General, 331 
Kavanagh, Lucknow, 307 
Keane, Sir John, 219 
Keating, Colonel, 141 
Kelly, Dr., 337 
Kelly, Colonel, his march to 

Chitral, 349 
Khaibar Pass, 358 
Khalsa, army, of Sikhs, 247 
Khelat, Khan of, 359 
Khiva, 331 
Kolarian, 51 
Kora, 124, 126 
Koragaon, defence of, 195 
Krishna Raj, 168 
Kunch, battle of, 312 
Kirki, garrison of, 194 
Kurdla, 160 



La Bourdonnais captures 
Madras, 70 

Laing, Samuel, 316 

Lally, Count, 105 

Lai Singh, 255 * 

Land, permanent settlement, 
154-158 ; Bengal Act of 1859, 
157 ; settlement in Madras, 
199 ; settlement in North- 
west Provinces, 206 ; Tax, 
366 

Lansdowne, Lord, 344 

Lake, General, 174 

Lapse, doctrine of, 265 

Laswari, battle of, 174, 176 

Lawrence, Major, French sur- 
render to, 88 



39^ 



INDEX. 



Lawrence, Henry, 254, 258, 280, 
294 

Lawrence, John, 258, 286, 318 

Leibnitz, advice to Louis XIV., 44 

Leslie, Colonel, 142 

Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 379 

License-tax, 334 

Littler, Sir J., 250 

Low, Colonel, 349 

Lucknow, Treaty of, 170 ; Resi- 
dency at, 294 ; defence of, 
294 ; advance on, 300, 301 ; 
retreat from, 309 ; final cap- 
ture of, 310 

Lumsden, Sir Peter, 343 

Lyall, Sir Alfred, 389 

Lytton, Lord, 334-34 1 

M 

Macartney, Lord, 148 
Macaulay, Lord, 150 ; opinion 

on Oriental literature, 214 
Macnaghten, Sir William, 227, 

230 
Macnaghten, Lady, 234 
Macpherson, General, at Kabul, 

339 
Maharajpur, battle of, 238, 297 

Mahe, 144 

Maiwand, battle of, 341 

Malcolm, Sir John, 164 

Mangalore, Treaty of, 152 

Manipur, 345 

Manni Begam of Oudh, 132 

Mansel, Charles Greville, 258 

Marathas, 6, 69, 123, 125, 154, 

171, 172, 188 
Markar, 109 
Martiniere, 308 

Massey, General, at Kabul, 339 
Masulipatam, capture of, 176 
Maude's Battery, 296, 297, 304 
Mauritius, capture of, 184 
Mayo, Lord, 327 ; financial re- 
forms of, 329 ; death, 329 
Meade, Sir Richard, 314 
Meerut, arrest of mutineers at, 

280 ; mutiny, 281 
Megasthenes, Ambassador to 
Chandragupta, 6 



Mehidpur, battle of, 196 

Mekong River, 351, 360 

Meloria, battle in 1284, 11 

Mess-house at Lucknow, 304 

Mill's " History of British India," 
199 

Minto, Lord, 183-5 

Mir Jafar, 97 ; puts Siraj-ud- 
Daula to death, 102 

Mitchell, Colonel, 277 

Mone3'lenders, 367 

Monson, Colonel, 130, 134 

Monson's retreat before Holkar, 
178, 179 

Mornington, Lord, 161 

Mudki, 250 

Mughal Empire, 57-67 

Mughal Emperors, last of, 303 

Muhammad, his teaching, 8 ; 
conquests, 10 

Muhammad Raza Khan, 128, 132 

Mulraj, 255 

Multan, 255 

Mundinpur, battle of, 311 

Munghal, Pandi, 278 

Munro, Sir Hector, quells mutiny, 
no, 145 

Munro, Sir Thomas, 199 

Mushkaf Valley Railway, 359 

Muti Masjid, 304 

Mutiny at Vellore, 181 ; early 
mutinies, 271-2 ; at Berham- 
pur, 2']'] ; at Ambala, 278 ; at 
Allahabad, 287 ; cause of, 287 ; 
at Benares, 289 ; defence of 
Cawnpur, 292 ; defence of 
Lucknow, 294 ; Delhi cap- 
tured, 303 ; relief of Lucknow, 
305 ; retreat from Lucknow, 

309 ; capture of Lucknow, 

310 ; debt of, 315 
Muzaffar Jang, 75 
Mysore wars, 152, 165 

N 

Nabha Raja, 301 

Nagpur, 267 

Nana Sahib, 196, 267, 275, 290, 

297, 299, 310, 314 
Nanak, 245 



INDEX. 



397 



Nanda Kumar, 128, 132 

Nandidrug, 154 

Napier, Sir Charles, and Sind, 

238 ; on Mutiny, 272, 313 
Napoleon, Conference of Tilsit, 

183 
National Congress, 344 
Natives, employment of, in Civil 

Service, 370 
Navigation Act of Cromwell, 

40 ; of Charles II., 43 
Nawab of Karnatik, 69 ; title 

lapses, 267 
Nawab Wazir, 125, 131 
Neill, Colonel, at Benares, 289 ; 

at Allahabad, 290 ; at Cawn- 

pur, 298 
Nelson, Lord, 164 
Nepal, 188 

Newberry, John, visits India, 22 
Nicholson, John, 234, 301, 302 
Nizam of South India, 69, 164 
Nizamat Adalat, 159 
North, Lord, Regulation Act of 

1773, 118 
Northbrook. Lord, 331 
Nott, General, 234, 236 
Nun, Thomas, his Tract, 36, y] 
Nundcoomar. See Nanda Kumar 



O 



Ochterlony, General, and 
Ghurka War, 189 ; death of, 
203 

Omichund. See Aminchand 

Ophir, 3 

Opium, 366 

Orissa Famine, 321 

Ormuz, conquest of, 21 ; cap- 
tured by English fleet, 35 

Oudh, 113, 123, 125, 139, 169, 
262, 263, 264, 280 

Outram, 222, 300 

Oxus River, 327 



Palmer and Co., banking firm 

of, 198 
Palmerston, speech in 1855, 273 



Palmyra, the Tadmor of old, 3 ; 
influence of its art on India, 
7 ; razed to the ground, 8 

Pandu Nadi, 297 

Panjdeh, 343 

Panipat, 123 

Panjkora River, 349 

Panniar, battle of, 239 

Patiala, Maharaja of, 301 

Pearse, Colonel, 145 

Peel of the Shannon, 308 

Periyar project, 377 

Permanent settlement, 154-8 

Perron, 176 

Peshawar held by John Law- 
rence, 301 

Peshwa, 123, 140, 172, 192, 196 

Petroleum, 378 

Phayre, Colonel, 334 

Philosophy, Indian and Greek, 7 

Pindaris, 187, 191 

Pitt, Indian Bill of, 150, 137 

Pliny, 7 

Pocock, Admiral, relieves 
Madras, 105 

Pollilur, battle of, 146 

Pollock, General, 235 

Pondicherry, 69, 144 

Poona, 140 

Popham, Captain, 142 

Population, 364 ; poverty of, 364 

Porto Novo, battle of, 146 

Portuguese in India, 12-36 ; 
early Viceroys, 20 ; loss of 
Empire, 35 

Postage, 268 

Pottinger's defence of Herat, 
217 

Prendergast, General, 342 

Press, freedom of, 204, 342 

Proclamation of Queen, 314, 372 

Provincial Civil Service, 370 

Punjab, 216 ; Board, 258 ; an- 
nexation of, 258 

Purnaiya, 168 

Q 

Queen proclaimed Empress, 

334 ; Proclamation of, 372 
Quetta, 335, 359 
Ouinton, Mr., 345 



398 



INDEX. 



R 

Ragunath Rao (Raghuba), 140 
Railways, 323, 359, 375 
Ramnagar, battle of, 257 
Rangoon, 202 
Ran iit Singh, 184, 217, 240, 243, 

248 
Rathgarh, capture of, 311 
Rawlinson, Sir Henry, 234, 326 
Raymond, George, first voyage 

to India, 25 
Raymond, 160 
Regulation Act of 1773, 118 
Reinhardt, 109 
Remarriage of Hindu widows, 

210 
Renaud, Major, 296 
Revenue, opium, 366 ; salt, 367 
Ripon, Lord, 342 
Roberts, Lord, 308, 337, 339, 342 
Robertson, Surgeon-Major, 347, 

349 
Roe, Sir Thomas, his embassy, 

59 
Rohilkhand, 125 
Rohillas, 123, 125, 127 
Rose, Sir Hugh, in Central 

India, 311-13 
Rumbold, Sir William, 198 
Rupee, fall of, 363 
Russia, 183, 217, 324, 331, 336, 

344 
Ryswick, Treaty of, 45 



Saadut Ali, 160 
Sadr Diwani Adalat, J 59 
Safdar Ali, 69 
Sagar, relief of, 311 
Salbai, Treaty of, 144 
Sale, Sir Robert, 250 
Salisbury, Lord, and Afghani- 
stan, 335 
Salsette, 140, 143 
Salkeld, Lieutenant, 302 
Sambalpur lapses, 266 
Sambre, or Samruj 109 
Sandeman, Sir Robert, 358 
San Stefano, Treaty of, 336 
Satara annexed, 266 



Sati, or widow-burning, noticed 

by Greeks, 5 ; by Ralph Fitch, 

23 ; 206 
Savandrug, 154 
Secundra Bagh, 304 ; captured. 

308 
Segauli, Treaty of, 190 
Senapati at Manipur, 345 
Sepoys, 270, 275 
Seringapatam, 154 ; capture of, 

167 
Settlement, land, 154-8 ; in 

Madras, 199 ; in North- West 

Provinces, 206 
Shah Alam, 109, 113, 161 
Shah Jahan, 62 
Shah Najaf captured, 308 
Sher Ali, 326, 332 
Sheridan, 150 
Sherpur cantonments, 340 
Shitab Rai, 128, 132 
Sholinghar, 146 
Shore, Sir John, 156, 159 
Shuja-ud-Daula, 109, 125 
Shuja-ul-Mulk, driven from 

Kabul, 217 ; restored by Eng- 
lish, 220 ; slain, 235 
Siam, 360 
Sikhs, 183, 245 ; persecution of, 

246 ; first war, 250-4 ; second 

war, 257 
Sind, 220 ; annexed, 238 
Sindhia, 123, 238, 313 
Siraj-ud-Daula, 90-102 
Sitabaldi, defence of, 197 
Sitana, 319 
Sivaji, 63 

Skene, Captain, 311, 345 
Sleeman, Colonel, and Thags, 213 
Smith, Sir Harry, 252 
Soame, Sir Stephen, 26 
Sobraon, battle of, 253 
Spanish Armada, 21 
Staunton, Colonel, 195 
Steam Navigation, 379 
Stephen, Sir James, on trial of 

Nanda Kumar, 133, 329 
Stephen, Leslie, 329 
Stevens, Thomas, visits India, 

22 ; his letters, 22 
Stewart, Sir Donald, ^ 



INDEX. 



399 



Stirling, Major, 298 

Strachey, Colonel Richard, 323 

Suez Canal, 331, 380 

Suffren, Admiral, 146 

Sultanpet, 166 

Surji Arjangaon, Treaty of, 177 

Swally, fight off, 33 



Tan j ore, 169 

Tansa reservoir, 375 

Tantia Topi, 291, 310, 312, 314 

Tara Bhai, 238 

Tavernier, 66 

Taxation, 364. See Revenue and 

Land 
Taylor, Colonel Meadows, and 

Thags, 213 
Tea, 383 

Tej Singh, 249, 252, 255 
Telegraph, 268 

Tenancy Act, Bengal 1885, 158 
Tenasserin ceded, 203 
Tennyson, Poem Akbar, 67 
Thackwell, Sir Joseph, 253 
Thags, 211-13 
Theebaw, King, 342 
Thevenot, account of Thags, 211 
Tilsit, 183 ■ 

Timur, or Tamerlane, 56 
Tipu Sultan, 147, 154, 163, 167 
Todd, d'Arcy, 223 
Tombs, Brigadier, 320 
Towerson, Captain, massacred 

at Amboyna, 38 
Trade, 185 ; to India thrown 

open, 198 
Trades increase, 33 
Travancore, 152 
Trichinopoli, siege of, yy 
Tulsi Bai, 196 
Turkey and Russia, 336 
Turkmanchi, Treaty of, 217 
Tytler, Col. Fraser, 304 

U 

Umra Khan of Jandol, 348 
Unao, battle of, 299 
Universities, 388 
Utrecht, Treaty of, 46 



V 

Vans Agnew, 255 

Vansittart, Governor of Bengal, 

107 
Vasco da Gama sails for India. 

12; taken prisoner, 14; his 

revenge on the Moors, 16 
Vellore Mutiny, 181 
Venice founded, 11 
Ventura, General, 247 
Versailles, Peace of, 148 
Viceroy's council, 368 
Viktevitch at Kabul, 218 
Voyages, early, 29, 31, 32, 33 ; 

later, 36 

W 

Wahabis, 318 

Wake, Herwold, at Arrah, 288 
Wandewash, 145 
Wargaon, convention of, 141 
Water supply, 375 
Waterman, Captain, 309 
Watson, Admiral, 94 
Wellesley, Marquess, 161-81 
Wellesley, Colonel Arthur, 165 
Wellesley, Hon. H., 171 
West, Sir Raymond, 389 
Wheeler, Sir Hugh, at Cawnpur, 

290 
Whish, General, captures Multan, 

257 
Whitchurch, Surgeon-Captain, 

348 
Widow-burning, 206 
Willoughby at Delhi, 284 
Wilson, Mr., Finance Minister, 

316 
Windham, General, 307, 310 
Wolseley, Captain, 308 
Wood, Captain Benjamin, 26 
Wood, Sir C. (Lord Halifax), 

268, 387 

Y 

Yakub Khan, 337, 339 
Yunnan, 360 



Zamindars, 155 
Zhob Valley, 359 



XEbe 5ton> of the ligations. 



MESSRS. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS take pleasure in 
announcing that they have in course of publication, in 
co-operation with Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, of London, a 
series of historical studies, intended to present in a 
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In the story form the current of each national life is 
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GREECE. Prof. Jas. A. Harri- 
son. 

ROME. Arthur Gilman. 

THE JEWS. Prof. James K.Hos- 
mer. 

CHALDEA. Z.A. Ragozin, 

GERMANY. S. Baring-Gould. 

NORWAY. Hjalmar H. Boye- 
sen t 

SPAIN. Rev. E. E. and Susan 
Hale. 

HUNGARY. Prof. A. Vambery. 

CARTHAGE. Prof. Alfred J. 
Church. 

THE SARACENS. Arthur Gil- 
man. 

THE MOORS IN SPAIN. Stan- 
ley Lane-Poole. 

THE NORMANS. Sarah Orne 
Jewett. 

PERSIA. S. G. W. Benjamin. 

ANCIENT EGYPT. Prof. Geo. 
Rawlinson. 

ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. Prof. 
J. P. Mahaffy. 

ASSYRIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 

THE GOTHS. Henry Bradley. 

IRELAND. Hon. Emily Lawless. 

TURKEY. Stanley Lane-Poole. 

MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PER- 
SIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 

MEDIEVAL FRANCE. Prof. 
Gustave Masson. 

HOLLAND. Prof. J. Thorold 
Rogers. 

MEXICO. Susan Hale. 

PH^NICIA, Geo. Rawlinson, 



THE HANSA TOWNS. Helen 

Zimmern. 
EARLY BRITAIN. Prof. Alfred 

J. Church. 
THE BARBARY CORSAIRS. 

Stanley Lane-Poole. 
RUSSIA. W. R. Morfill. 
THE JEWS UNDER ROME. W. 

D. Morrison. 
SCOTLAND. John Mackintosh. 
SWITZERLAND. R. Stead and 

Mrs. A. Hug. 
PORTUGAL. H. Morse Stevens. 
THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. C. 

W. C. Oman. 
SICILY. E. A. Freeman. 
THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. 

Bella Duffy. 
POLAND. W. R. [Morfill. 
PARTHIA. Geo. Rawlinson. 
JAPAN. David Murray. 
THE CHRISTIAN RECOVERY 

OF SPAIN. H.E. Watts. 
AUSTRALASIA. Greville Tre- 

garthen. 
SOUTHERN AFRICA. Geo. M. 

Theal. 
VENICE. AletheaWiel. 
THE CRUSADES. T.S.Archer 

and C. L. Kingsford. 
VEDIC INDIA. Z.A. Ragozin. 
BOHEMIA. C.E.Maurice. 
CANADA. J. G. Bourinot. 
THE BALKAN STATES. Wil- 
liam Miller. 
BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. R. 

W. Frazer, 




Deroes of the IRationa 

EDITED BY 

EVELYN ABBOTT, M.A., Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. 



A Series of biographical studies of the lives and work 
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vided with maps and adequately illustrated according to 
the special requirements of the several subjects. The 
volumes will be sold separately as follows : 

Cloth extra . . $i 50 

Half morocco, uncut edges, gilt top . . 1 75 



The following are now ready (Jan., 1897): 

Nelson, and the Naval Supremacy of England. By W. Clark 
Russell, author of " The Wreck of the Grosvenor," etc. 

Gustavus Adolphus, and the Struggle of Protestantism for Exist- 
ence. By C. R. L. Fletcher, M. A., late Fellow of All Souls College. 

Pericles, and the Golden Age of Athens. By Evelyn Abbott, M.A. 

Theodoric the Goth, the Barbarian Champion of Civilisation. By 
Thomas Hodgkin, author of •' Italy and Her Invaders," etc. 

Sir Philip Sidney, and the Chivalry of England. By H. R. Fox- 
bourne, author of "The Life of John Locke," etc. 

Julius Caesar, and the Organisation of the Roman Empire. By W. 
Warde Fowler, M.A., Fellow of Lincoln College. Oxford. 

John Wyclif, Last of the Schoolmen and First of the English Re- 
formers. By Lewis Sergeant, author of " New Greece," etc. 

Napoleon, Warrior and Ruler, and the Military Supremacy of 
Revolutionary France. By W. O'Connor Morris. 

Henry of Navarre, and the Huguenots in France. By P. F. Willert, 
M.A., Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. 

Cicero, and the Fall of the Roman Republic. By J. L. Strachan 
Davidson, M.A. , Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. 

Abraham Lincoln, and the Downfall of American Slavery. By 
Noah Brooks. 

Prince Henry (of Portugal) the Navigator, and the Age of Dis- 
covery. By C. R. Beazley, Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. 

Julian the Philosopher, and the Last Struggle of Paganism against 
Christianity„ By Alice Gardner. 

Louis XIV., and the Zenith of the French Monarchy. By Arthur 
Hassall, M.A., Senior Student of Christ Church College, Oxford. 

Charles XIL, and the Collapse of the Swedish Empire, 1682-1719. 
By R. Nisbet Bain. 

Lorenzo de' Medici. By Edward Armstrong, M.A. 

Jeanne d'Arc. By Mrs. Oliphant. 

Christopher Columbus. By Washington Irving. 

Robert the Bruce, and the Struggle for Scottish Independence. 
By Sir Herbert Maxwell, M.P. 

To be followed by : 

The Cid Campeador, and the Waning of the Crescent in the West. 

By H. Butler Clarke, Windham College, Oxford. 
Hannibal, and the Crisis of the Struggle between Carthage and 

Rome. By W. O'Connor Morris, author of " Napoleon," etc. 
Moltke, and the Military Supremacy of Germany. By Spencer 

Wilkinson, University of London. 
Bismarck. The New German Empire, How it Arose and What it 

Displaced. By J. W. Hedlam, M.A., Fellow of King's College, 

Cambridge. 
Judas Maccabaeus, the Conflict between Hellenism and Hebraism. 

By Abraham Isaacs, author of the " Life of the Jews in the Middle 

Ages." 
Henry V., the English Hero King. By Charles L. Kingsford, joint- 
author of the ' ' Story of the Crusades. " 

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